VI  UC-NRLF 


B     3     mb     3^1 


aFORD 

ANDReW  LANG 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


BEQUEST 

OF 

ANITA  D.  S.  BLAKE 


OXFORD 


Tom  Tower,   Christ   Church,   containing   "Great   Tom,' 
a  bell   formerly  belonging  to  Osney  Abbey. 


OXFORD 


BY 


ANDREW   LANG 

SOMETIME    FELLOW 
OF    MERTON    COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS   IN   COLOUR 

BY 

GEORGE  F.   CARLINE 

R.B.A. 


THE  CORNHILL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


Architecture 
GIFT 


TO 

A.    M.    LEE 


960 


PREFACE 

THESE  papers  do  not  profess  even  to  sketch 
the  outhnes  of  a  history  of  Oxford. 
They  are  merely  records  of  the  im- 
pressions made  by  this  or  that  aspect  of  the  hfe  of 
the  University  as  it  has  been  in  different  ages. 
Oxford  is  not  an  easy  place  to  design  in  black  and 
white,  with  the  pen  or  the  etcher's  needle.  On 
a  wild  winter  or  late  autumn  day  (such  as  Father 
Faber  has  made  permanent  in  a  beautiful  poem) 
the  sunshine  fleets  along  the  plain,  revealing 
towers,  and  floods,  and  trees,  in  a  gleam  of  watery 
light,  and  leaving  them  once  more  in  shadow. 
The  melancholy  mist  creeps  over  the  city,  the 
damp  soaks  into  the  heart  of  everything,  and  such 
suicidal  weather  ensues  as  has  been  described, 
once  for  all,  by  the  author  of  John-a-Dreams. 
How    different    Oxford    looks    when    the    road 


Oxford 

to  Cowley  Marsh  is  dumb  with  dust,  when  the 
heat  seems  almost  tropical,  and  by  the  drowsy 
banks  of  the  Cherwell  you  might  almost  expect 
some  shy  southern  water-beast  to  come  crashing 
through  the  reeds !  And  such  a  day,  again,  is 
unlike  the  bright  weather  of  late  September,  when 
all  the  gold  and  scarlet  of  Bagley  Wood  are  con- 
centrated in  the  leaves  that  cover  the  walls  of 
Magdalen  with  an  imperial  vesture. 

Our  memories  of  Oxford,  if  we  have  long 
made  her  a  Castle  of  Indolence,  vary  no  less  than 
do  the  shifting  aspects  of  her  scenery.  Days  of 
spring  and  of  mere  pleasure  in  existence  have 
alternated  with  days  of  gloom  and  loneliness,  of 
melancholy,  of  resignation.  Our  mental  pictures 
of  the  place  are  tinged  by  many  moods,  as  the 
landscape  is  beheld  in  shower  and  sunshine,  in 
frost,  and  in  the  colourless  drizzling  weather. 
Oxford,  that  once  seemed  a  pleasant  porch  and 
entrance  into  life,  may  become  a  dingy  ante-room, 
where  we  kick  our  heels  with  other  weary,  wait- 
ing people.     At  last,  if  men  linger  there  too  late, 


T^reface 

Oxford  grows  a  prison,  and  it  is  the  final  con- 
dition of  the  loiterer  to  take  '  this  for  a  hermitage.' 
It  is  well  to  leave  the  enchantress  betimes,  and  to 
carry  away  few  but  kind  recollections.  If  there 
be  any  who  think  and  speak  ungently  of  their 
Alma  Mater^  it  is  because  they  have  outstayed 
their  natural  '  welcome  while,'  or  because  they 
have  resisted  her  genial  influence  in  youth. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.         I.    THE    TOWN    BEFORE    THE    UNIVERSITY      .  1 9 


„  U.    THE    EARLY     STUDENTS  A    DAY    WITH 

A    MEDIEVAL    UNDERGRADUATE 


?> 


VI.    HIGH    TORY    OXFORD 


„        VII.    GEORGIAN    OXFORD 

„       VIII.    POETS        AT       OXFORD  :       SHELLEY       AND 
LANDOR        .  .  .  . 


43 


III.  THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE     REFORMA- 

TION .  .  .  .67 

IV.  JACOBEAN    OXFORD  ,  .  .89 
V.    SOME    SCHOLARS    OF    THE    RESTORATION  .  Ill 

•  133 


153 


.  171 

IX.    A    GENERAL    VIEW             .  .  .  191 

X.    UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE CONCLUSION        .  209 


THE   TOWN   BEFORE   THE 
UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  TOWN  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY 

MOST  old  towns  are  like  palimpsests, 
parchments  which  have  been  scrawled 
over  again  and  again  by  their  suc- 
cessive owners.  Oxford,  though  not  one  of  the 
most  ancient  of  English  cities,  shows,  more 
legibly  than  the  rest,  the  handwriting,  as  it 
were,  of  many  generations.  The  convenient 
site  among  the  interlacing  waters  of  the  Isis  and 
the  Cherwell  has  commended  itself  to  men  in 
one  age  after  another.  Each  generation  has 
used  it  for  its  own  purpose  :  for  war,  for  trade, 
for  learning,  for  religion  ;  and  war,  trade,  reli- 
gion, and  learning  have  left  on  Oxford  their 
peculiar  marks.  No  set  of  its  occupants,  before 
the  last  two  centuries  began,  was  very  eager  to 
deface  or  destroy  the  buildings  of  its  predeces- 

19 


Oxford 

sors.  Old  things  were  turned  to  new  uses,  or 
altered  to  suit  new  tastes  ;  they  were  not  over- 
thrown and  carted  away.  Thus,  in  walking 
through  Oxford,  you  see  everywhere,  in  colleges, 
chapels,  and  churches,  doors  and  windows  which 
have  been  builded  up  ;  or  again,  openings  which 
have  been  cut  where  none  originally  existed. 
The  upper  part  of  the  round  Norman  arches  in 
the  Cathedral  has  been  preserved,  and  converted 
into  the  circular  bull's-eye  lights  which  the  last 
century  liked.  It  is  the  same  everywhere, 
except  where  modern  restorers  have  had  their 
way.  Thus  the  life  of  England,  for  some  eight 
centuries,  may  be  traced  in  the  buildings  of 
Oxford.  Nay,  if  we  are  convinced  by  some 
antiquaries,  the  eastern  end  of  the  High  Street 
contains  even  earlier  scratches  on  this  palimpsest 
of  Oxford  ;  the  rude  marks  of  savages  who 
scooped  out  their  damp  nests,  and  raised  their 
low  walls  in  the  gravel,  on  the  spot  where  the 
new  schools  are  to  stand.  Here  half-naked 
men  may  have  trapped  the  beaver  in  the  Cher- 


20 


"The  Town  before  the  University 

well,  and  hither  they  may  have  brought  home 
the  boars  which  they  slew  in  the  trackless  woods 
of  Headington  and  Bagley.  It  is  with  the  life 
of  historical  Oxford,  however^  and  not  with  these 
fancies,  that  we  are  concerned,  though  these 
papers  have  no  pretension  to  be  a  history  of 
Oxford.  A  series  of  pictures  of  men's  life  here 
is  all  they  try  to  sketch. 

It  is  hard,  though  not  impossible,  to  form  a 
picture  in  the  mind  of  Oxford  as  she  was  when 
she  is  first  spoken  of  by  history.  What  she  may 
have  been  when  legend  only  knows  her  ;  when 
St.  Frideswyde  built  a  home  for  religious  maidens ; 
when  she  fled  from  King  Algar  and  hid  among 
the  swine,  and  after  a  whole  fairy  tale  of  adven- 
tures died  in  great  sanctity,  we  cannot  even 
guess.  This  legend  of  St.  Frideswyde,  and  of 
her  foundation,  the  germ  of  the  Cathedral  and 
of  Christ  Church,  is  not,  indeed,  without  its 
value  and  significance  for  those  who  care  for 
Oxford.  This  home  of  religion  and  of  learning 
was  a  home  of  religion  from  the  beginning,  and 


21 


Oxford 

her  later  life  is  but  a  return,  after  centuries  of 
war  and  trade,  to  her  earliest  purpose.  What 
manner  of  village  of  wooden  houses  may  have 
surrounded  the  earliest  rude  chapels  and  places 
of  prayer,  we  cannot  readily  guess,  but  imagina- 
tion may  look  back  on  Oxford  as  she  was  when 
the  English  Chronicle  first  mentions  her.  Even 
then  it  is  not  unnatural  to  think  Oxford  might 
well  have  been  a  city  of  peace.  She  lies  in  the 
very  centre  of  England,  and  the  Northmen,  as 
they  marched  inland,  burning  church  and  cloister, 
must  have  wandered  long  before  they  came  to 
Oxford.  On  the  other  hand,  the  military  im- 
portance of  the  site  must  have  made  it  a  town 
that  would  be  eagerly  contended  for.  Any  places 
of  strength  in  Oxford  would  command  the  roads 
leading  to  the  north  and  west,  and  the  secure, 
raised  paths  that  ran  through  the  flooded  fens  to 
the  ford  or  bridge,  if  bridge  there  then  was, 
between  Godstowe  and  the  later  Norman  grand 
pont^  where  Folly  Bridge  now  spans  the  Isis. 
Somewhere    near    Oxford,    the    roads    that    ran 

22 


The  "Town  before  the  University 

towards  Banbury  and  the  north,  or  towards 
Bristol  and  the  west,  would  be  obliged  to  cross 
the  river.  The  water-way,  too,  and  the  paths 
by  the  Thames'  side,  were  commanded  by 
Oxford.  The  Danes,  as  they  followed  up  the 
course  of  the  Thames  from  London,  would  be 
drawn  thither,  sooner  or  later,  and  would  covet 
a  place  which  is  surrounded  by  half  a  dozen 
deep  natural  moats.  Lastly,  Oxford  lay  in  the 
centre  of  England  indeed,  but  on  the  very 
marches  of  Mercia  and  Wessex.  A  border  town 
of  natural  strength  and  of  commanding  situation, 
she  can  have  been  no  mean  or  poor  collection  of 
villages  in  the  days  when  she  is  first  spoken  of, 
when  Eadward  the  Elder  '  incorporated  with  his 
own  kingdom  the  whole  Mercian  lands  on  both 
sides  of  Watling  Street '  (Freeman's  Norman 
Conquest^  vol.  i.  p.  57),  and  took  possession  of 
London  and  of  Oxford  as  the  two  most  im- 
portant parts  of  a  scientific  frontier.  If  any 
man  had  stood,  in  the  days  of  Eadward,  on  the 
hill  that  was  not  yet  '  Shotover,'  and  had  looked 

23 


Oxford 

along  the  plain  to  the  place  where  the  grey 
spires  of  Oxford  are  clustered  now,  as  it  were  in 
a  purple  cup  of  the  low  hills,  he  would  have 
seen  little  but  '  the  smoke  floating  up  through 
the  oakwood  and  the  coppice,' 

KaTTi/ov  S'  Ivi  [Jiecrcrr) 
eSpaKov  6(f)da\iJL0Lcn  Sta  Spv/xa  irvKva  Kal  vk-qv. 

The  low  hills  were  not  yet  cleared,  nor  the  fens 
and  the  wolds  trimmed  and  enclosed.  Centuries 
later,  when  the  early  students  came,  they  had  to 
ride  'through  the  thick  forest  and  across  the 
moor,  to  the  East  Gate  of  the  city '  [Munimenta 
Academica^  Oxon.,  vol.  i.  p.  60).  In  the  midst 
of  a  country  still  wild,  Oxford  was  already  no 
mean  city  ;  but  the  place  where  the  hostile 
races  of  the  land  met  to  settle  their  differences, 
to  feast  together  and  forget  their  wrongs  over  the 
mead  and  ale,  or  to  devise  treacherous  murder, 
and  close  the  banquet  with  fire  and  sword. 

Again  and  again,  after  Eadward  the  Elder 
took  Mercia,  the  Danes  went  about  burning  and 
wasting    England.       The   wooden    towns    were 

24 


The  Town  before  the  University 

flaming  through  the  night,  and  sending  up  a 
thick  smoke  through  the  day,  from  Thames- 
mouth  to  Cambridge.  '  And  next  was  there  no 
headman  that  force  would  gather,  and  each  fled 
as  swift  as  he  might,  and  soon  was  there  no 
shire  that  would  help  another.'  When  the  first 
fury  of  the  plundering  invaders  was  over,  when 
the  Northmen  had  begun  to  wish  to  settle  and 
till  the  land  and  have  some  measure  of  peace, 
the  early  meetings  between  them  and  the  English 
rulers  were  held  in  the  border-town,  in  Oxford. 
Thus  Sigeferth  and  Morkere,  sons  of  Earngrim, 
came  to  see  Eadric  in  Oxford,  and  there  were 
slain  at  a  banquet,  while  their  followers  perished 
in  the  attempt  to  avenge  them.  '  Into  the 
tower  of  St.  Frideswyde  they  were  driven,  and 
as  men  could  not  drive  them  thence,  the  tower 
was  fired,  and  they  perished  in  the  burning.' 
So  says  William  of  Malmesbury,  who,  so  many 
years  later,  read  the  story,  as  he  says,  in  the 
records  of  the  Church  of  St.  Frideswyde.  There 
is   another  version   of  the    story  in   the    Codex 

25 


Oxford 

Diplomaticus  (dccix.).  Aethelred  is  made  to 
say,  in  a  deed  of  grant  of  lands  to  St.  Frideswyde's 
Church  ('  mine  own  minster  '),  that  the  Danes 
were  slain  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Brice.  On  that 
day  Aethelred,  'by  the  advice  of  his  satraps, 
determined  to  destroy  the  tares  among  the  wheat, 
the  Danes  in  England.'  Certain  of  these  fled 
into  the  minster,  as  into  a  fortress,  and  therefore 
it  was  burned  and  the  books  and  monuments 
destroyed.  For  this  cause  Aethelred  gives  lands 
to  the  minster, '  fro  Charwell  brigge  andlong  the 
streame,  fro  Merewell  to  Rugslawe,  fro  the  lawe 
to  the  foule  putte,'  and  so  forth.  It  is  pleasant 
to  see  how  old  are  the  familiar  names '  Cherwell,' 
'Hedington,'  'Couelee'  or  Cowley,  where  the 
college  cricket-grounds  are.  Three  years  passed, 
and  the  headmen  of  the  English  and  of  the 
Danes  met  at  Oxford  again,  and  more  peacefully, 
and  agreed  to  live  together,  obedient  to  the  laws 
of  Eadgar  ;  to  the  law,  that  is,  as  it  was  adminis- 
tered in  older  days,  that  seem  happier  and  better 
ruled  to  men  looking  back  on  them  from  an  age 
26 


The  Town  before  the  University 

of  confusion  and  bloodshed.  At  Oxford,  too, 
met  the  peaceful  gathering  of  1035,  when  Danish 
and  English  claims  were  in  some  sort  reconciled, 
and  at  Oxford  Harold  Harefoot,  the  son  of  Gnut, 
died  in  March  1040.  The  place  indeed  was 
fatal  to  kings,  for  St.  Frideswyde,  in  her  anger 
against  King  Algar,  left  her  curse  on  it.  Just 
as  the  old  Irish  kings  were  forbidden  by  their 
customs  to  do  this  or  that,  to  cross  a  certain 
moor  on  May  morning,  or  to  listen  to  the 
winnowing  of  the  night-fowl's  wings  in  the  dusk 
above  the  lake  of  Tara  ;  so  the  kings  of  England 
shunned  to  enter  Oxford,  and  to  come  within 
the  walls  of  Frideswyde  the  maiden.  Harold 
died  there,  as  we  have  seen,  but  there  he  was 
not  buried.  His  body  was  laid  at  Westminster, 
where  it  could  not  rest,  for  his  enemies  dug  it 
up,  and  cast  it  forth  upon  the  fens,  or  threw  it 
into  the  river.  Many  years  later,  when  Henry 
III.  entered  Oxford,  not  without  fear,  the  curse 
of  Frideswyde  lighted  also  upon  him.  He  came 
in  1263,  with  Edward  the  prince,  and  misfortune 

27 


Oxford 

fell  upon  him,  so  that  his  barons  defeated  and 
took  him  prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Lewes.  The 
chronicler  of  Oseney  Abbey  mentions  his  con- 
tempt of  superstitions,  and  how  he  alone  of 
Enghsh  kings  entered  the  city:  ' ^od  nullus 
rex  attemptavit  a  tempore  Regis  Algari^  an 
error,  for  Harold  attemptavit^  and  died.  When 
Edward  i.  was  king,  he  was  less  audacious  than 
his  father,  and  in  1275  he  rode  up  to  the  East 
Gate  and  turned  his  horse's  head  about,  and 
sought  a  lodging  outside  the  town,  reflexis 
habenis  equitans  extra  moenia  aulam  regiam  in 
suburhio  posit  am  introivit.  In  1280,  however, 
he  seems  to  have  plucked  up  courage  and 
attended  a  Chapter  of  Dominicans  in  Oxford. 

The  last  of  the  meetings  between  North  and 
South  was  held  at  Oxford  in  October  1065. 
^  In  urhe  qiice  fa?noso  nomine  Oxnaford  nuncu- 
patur^  to  quote  a  document  of  Cnut's.  (Cod, 
DipL  DccxLvi.  in  1042.)  There  the  Northum- 
brian rebels  met  Harold  in  the  last  days  of 
Edward  the  Confessor.     With  this  meeting  we 

28 


T'he  T'own  before  the  University 

leave  that  Oxford  before  the  Conquest,  of  which 
possibly  not  one  stone,  or  one  rafter,  remains. 
We  look  back  through  eight  hundred  years  on 
a  city,  rich  enough,  it  seems,  and  powerful,  and 
we  see  the  narrow  streets  full  of  armed  bands  of 
men — men  that  wear  the  cognisance  of  the  horse 
or  of  the  raven,  that  carry  short  swords,  and  are 
quick  to  draw  them  ;  men  that  dress  in  short 
kirtles  of  a  bright  colour,  scarlet  or  blue  ;  that 
wear  axes  slung  on  their  backs,  and  adorn  their 
bare  necks  and  arms  with  collars  and  bracelets  of 
gold.  We  see  them  meeting  to  discuss  laws 
and  frontiers,  and  feasting  late  when  business 
is  done,  and  chaffering  for  knives  with  ivory 
handles,  for  arrows,  and  saddles,  and  wadmal, 
in  the  booths  of  the  citizens.  Through  the  mist 
of  time  this  picture  of  ancient  Oxford  may  be 
distinguished.  We  are  tempted  to  think  of  a 
low,  grey  twilight  above  that  wet  land  suddenly 
lit  up  with  fire  ;  of  the  tall  towers  of  St.  Frides- 
wyde's  Minster  flaring  like  a  torch  athwart  the 
night  ;  of  poplars  waving  in  the  same  wind  that 

29 


Oxford 

drives  the  vapour  and  smoke  of  the  holy  place 
down  on  the  Danes  w^ho  have  taken  refuge  there, 
and  there  stand  at  bay  against  the  English  and 
the  people  of  the  town.  The  material  Oxford  of 
our  times  is  not  more  unlike  the  Oxford  of  low 
wooden  booths  and  houses,  and  of  wooden  spires 
and  towers,  than  the  life  led  in  its  streets  was 
unlike  the  academic  life  of  to-day.  The  Con- 
quest brought  no  more  quiet  times,  but  the 
whole  city  was  wrecked,  stormed,  and  devastated, 
before  the  second  period  of  its  history  began, 
before  it  was  the  seat  of  a  Norman  stronghold, 
and  one  of  the  links  of  the  chain  by  which 
England  was  bound.  '  Four  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  houses  were  so  ruined  as  to  be 
unable  to  pay  taxes,'  while,  '  within  the  town  or 
without  the  wall,  there  were  but  two  hundred 
and  forty-three  houses  which  did  yield  tribute.' 

With  the  buildings  of  Robert  D'Oily,  a 
follower  of  the  Conqueror's,  and  the  husband 
of  an  English  wife,  the  heiress  of  Wigod  of 
Wallingford,  the  new  Oxford  begins.      Robert's 

30 


T'he  Town  before  the  University 

work  may  be  divided  roughly  into  two  classes. 
First,  there  are  the  strong  places  he  erected  to 
secure  his  possessions,  and,  second,  the  sacred 
places  he  erected  to  secure  the  pardon  of  Heaven 
for  his  robberies.  Of  the  castle,  and  its  '  shining 
coronal  of  towers,'  only  one  tower  remains. 
From  the  vast  strength  of  this  picturesque  edifice, 
with  the  natural  moat  flowing  at  its  feet,  we 
may  guess  what  the  castle  must  have  been  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Conquest,  and  during  the  wars 
of  Stephen  and  Matilda.  We  may  guess,  too, 
that  the  burghers  of  Oxford,  and  the  rustics  of 
the  neighbourhood,  had  no  easy  life  in  those 
days,  when,  as  we  have  seen,  the  town  was 
ruined,  and  when,  as  the  extraordinary  thickness 
of  the  walls  of  its  remaining  tower  demonstrates, 
the  castle  was  built  by  new  lords  who  did  not 
spare  the  forced  labour  of  the  vanquished.  The 
strength  of  the  position  of  the  castle  is  best 
estimated  after  viewing  the  surrounding  country 
from  the  top  of  the  tower.  Through  the  more 
modern  embrasures,  or  over  the  low  wall  round 

31 


Oxford 

the  summit,  you  look  up  and  down  the  valley  of 
the  Thames,  and  gaze  deep  into  the  folds  of  the 
hills.  The  prospect  is  pleasant  enough,  on  an 
autumn  morning,  with  the  domes  and  spires  of 
modern  Oxford  breaking,  like  islands,  through 
the  sea  of  mist  that  sweeps  above  the  roofs  of 
the  good  town.  In  the  old  times,  no  movement 
of  the  people  who  had  their  fastnesses  in  the 
fens,  no  approach  of  an  army  from  any  direction 
could  have  evaded  the  watchman.  The  towers 
guarded  the  fords  and  the  bridge  and  were  them- 
selves almost  impregnable,  except  when  a  hard 
winter  made  the  Thames,  the  Cherwell,  and 
the  many  deep  and  treacherous  streams  passable, 
as  happened  when  Matilda  was  beleaguered  in 
Oxford.  This  natural  strength  of  the  site  is 
demonstrated  by  the  vast  mound  within  the  castle 
walls,  which  tradition  caP.s  the  Jews'  Mound, 
but  which  is  probably  earlier  than  the  Norman 
buildings.  Some  other  race  had  chosen  the 
castle  site  for  its  fortress  in  times  of  which  we 
know  nothing.  Meanwhile,  some  of  the  practical 
32 


T'he  Town  before  the  University 

citizens  of  Oxford  wish  to  level  the  Jews'  Mound, 
and  to  '  utilise '  the  gravel  of  which  it  is  largely 
composed.  There  is  nothing  to  be  said  against 
this  economic  project  which  could  interest  or 
affect  the  persons  who  entertain  it.  M.  Brunet- 
Debaines'  illustration  shows  the  mill  on  a  site 
which  must  be  as  old  as  the  tower.  Did  the 
citizens  bring  their  corn  to  be  tolled  and  ground 
at  the  lord's  mill  ? 

Though  Robert  was  bent  on  works  of  war, 
he  had  a  nature  inclined  to  piety,  and,  his  piety 
beginning  at  home,  he  founded  the  church  of 
St.  George  within  the  castle.  The  crypt  of 
the  church  still  remains,  and  is  not  without 
interest  for  persons  who  like  to  trace  the  chang- 
ing fortunes  of  old  buildings.  The  site  of 
Robert's  Castle  is  at  present  occupied  by  the 
County  Gaol.  When  you  have  inspected  the 
tower  (which  does  not  do  service  as  a  dungeon) 
you  are  taken,  by  the  courtesy  of  the  Governor, 
to  the  crypt,  and  satisfy  your  archaeological 
curiosity.  The  place  is  much  lower,  and  worse 
c  33 


Oxford 

lighted,  than  the  contemporary  crypt  of  St. 
Peter's-in-the-East,  but  not,  perhaps,  less  inter- 
esting. The  square-headed  capitals  have  not 
been  touched,  like  some  of  those  in  St.  Peter's, 
by  a  later  chisel.  The  place  is  dank  and  earthy, 
but  otherwise  much  as  Robert  D'Oily  left  it. 
There  is  an  odd-looking  arrangement  of  planks 
on  the  floor.  It  is  the  new  drop^  which  is  found 
to  work  very  well,  and  gives  satisfaction  to  the 
persons  who  have  to  employ  it.  Sinister  the 
Norman  castle  was  in  its  beginning,  '  it  was  from 
the  castle  that  men  did  wrong  to  the  poor 
around  them  ;  it  was  from  the  castle  that  they 
bade  defiance  to  the  king,  who,  stranger  and 
tyrant  as  he  might  be,  was  still  a  protector  against 
smaller  tyrants.'  Sinister  the  castle  remains  ; 
you  enter  it  through  ironed  and  bolted  doors, 
you  note  the  prisoners  at  their  dreary  exercises, 
and,  when  you  have  seen  the  engines  of  the  law 
lying  in  the  old  crypt  you  pass  out  into  the 
place  of  execution.  Here,  in  a  corner  made  by 
Robert's  tower  and  by  the  wall  of  the  prison,  is 
34 


T^he  Town  before  the  University 

a  dank  little  quadrangle.  The  ground  is  of  the 
yellow  clay  and  gravel  which  floors  most  Oxford 
quadrangles.  A  few  letters  are  scratched  on  the 
soft  stone  of  the  wall — the  letters  '  H.  R.'  are 
the  freshest.  These  are  the  initials  of  the 
last  man  who  suffered  death  in  this  corner — 
a  young  rustic  who  had  murdered  his  sweet- 
heart. '  H.  R.'  on  the  prison  wall  is  all  his 
record,  and  his  body  lies  under  your  feet, 
and  the  feet  of  the  men  who  are  to  die  here 
in  after  days  pass  over  his  tomb.  It  is  thus 
that  malefactors  are  buried,  '  within  the  walls 
of  the  gaol.' 

One  is  glad  enough  to  leave  the  remains  of 
Robert's  place  of  arms — as  glad  as  Matilda  may 
have  been  when  '  they  let  her  down  at  night 
from  the  tower  with  ropes,  and  she  stole  out, 
and  went  on  foot  to  Wallingford.'  Robert 
seems  at  first  to  have  made  the  natural  use  of 
his  strength.  '  Rich  he  was,  and  spared  not 
rich  or  poor,  to  take  their  livelihood  away,  and 
to  lay  up  treasures  for  himself.'     He  stole  the 

IS 


Oxford 

lands  of  the  monks  of  Abingdon,  but  of  what 
service  were  moats,  and  walls,  and  dungeons, 
and  instruments  of  torture,  against  the  powers 
that  side  with  monks  ? 

The  Chronicle  of  Abingdon  has  a  very- 
diverting  account  of  Robert's  punishment  and 
conversion.  '  He  filched  a  certain  field  without 
the  walls  of  Oxford  that  of  right  belonged  to  the 
monastery,  and  gave  it  over  to  the  soldiers  in 
the  castle.  For  which  loss  the  brethren  were 
greatly  grieved — the  brethren  of  Abingdon. 
Therefore,  they  gathered  in  a  body  before  the 
altar  of  St.  Michael — the  very  altar  that  St. 
Dunstan  the  archbishop  dedicated — and  cast 
themselves  weeping  on  the  ground,  accusing 
Robert  D'Oily,  and  praying  that  his  robbery 
of  the  monastery  might  be  avenged,  or  that  he 
might  be  led  to  make  atonement.'  So,  in  a  dream, 
Robert  saw  himself  taken  before  Our  Lady  by 
two  brethren  of  Abingdon,  and  thence  carried 
into  the  very  meadow  he  had  coveted,  where 
*most    nasty     little     boys,'     turpissimi     pueri^ 

36 


"The  'Town  before  the  University 

worked  their  will  on  him.  Thereon  Robert 
was  terrified  and  cried  out,  and  wakened 
his  wife,  who  took  advantage  of  his  fears, 
and  compelled  him  to  make  restitution  to  the 
brethren. 

After  this  vision,  Robert  gave  himself  up  to 
pampering  the  monastery  and  performing  other 
good  works.  He  it  was  who  built  a  bridge 
over  the  Isis,  and  he  restored  the  many  ruined 
parish  churches  in  Oxford — churches  which, 
perhaps,  he  and  his  men  had  helped  to  ruin. 
The  tower  of  St.  Michael's,  in  '  the  Corn,'  is  said 
to  be  of  his  building  ;  perhaps  he  only  '  re- 
stored '  it,  for  it  is  in  the  true  primitive  style — 
gaunt,  unadorned,  with  round-headed  windows, 
good  for  shooting  from  with  the  bow.  St. 
Michael's  was  not  only  a  church,  but  a  watch- 
tower  of  the  city  wall  ;  and  here  the  old  north- 
gate,  called  Bocardo,  spanned  the  street.  The 
rooms  above  the  gate  were  used  till  within  quite 
recent  times,  and  the  poor  inmates  used  to  let 
down  a  greasy  old  hat  from  the  window  in  front 

37 


Oxford 

of  the  passers-by,  and  cry,  '  Pity  the  Bocardo 

birds '  : 

'  Pigons  qui  sont  en  I'essoine, 
Enserrez  soubz  trappe  voliere,' 

as  a  famous  Paris  student,  Fran9ois  Villon, 
would  have  called  them.  Of  Bocardo  no  trace 
remains,  but  St.  Michael's  is  likely  to  last  as 
long  as  any  edifice  in  Oxford.  Our  illustrations 
represent  it  as  it  was  in  the  last  century.  The 
houses  huddle  up  to  the  church,  and  hide  the 
lines  of  the  tower.  Now  it  stands  out  clear, 
less  picturesque  than  it  was  in  the  time  of 
Bocardo  prison.  Within  the  last  two  years  the 
windows  have  been  cleared,  and  the  curious  and 
most  archaic  pillars,  shaped  like  balustrades, 
may  be  examined.  It  is  worth  while  to  climb 
the  tower  and  remember  the  times  when  arrows 
were  sent  like  hail  from  the  narrow  windows  on 
the  foes  who  approached  Oxford  from  the  north, 
while  prayers  for  their  confusion  were  read  in 
the  church  below. 

That  old  Oxford  of  war  was  also  a  trading 

38 


T^he  Town  before  the  University 

town.  Nothing  more  than  the  fact  that  it  was 
a  favourite  seat  of  the  Jews  is  needed  to  prove 
its  commercial  prosperity.  The  Jews,  however, 
demand  a  longer  notice  in  connection  with  the 
still  unborn  University.  Meanwhile,  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  Oxford  trade  made  good  use  of  the 
river.  The  Abijigdon  Chronicle  (ii.  129)  tells  us 
that  'from  each  barque  of  Oxford  city,  which  makes 
the  passage  by  the  river  Thames  past  Abingdon, 
a  hundred  herrings  must  yearly  be  paid  to  the 
cellarer.  The  citizens  had  much  litigation  about 
land  and  houses  with  the  abbey,  and  one  Roger 
Maledoctus  (perhaps  a  very  early  sample  of  the 
pass -man)  gave  Abingdon  tenements  within 
the  city.'  Thus  we  leave  the  pre-Academic 
Oxford  a  flourishing  town,  with  merchants  and 
moneylenders.  As  for  the  religious,  the  brethren 
of  St.  Frideswyde  had  lived  but  loosely  [fro 
libit 0  viverunt)^  says  William  of  Malmesbury, 
and  were  to  be  superseded  by  regular  canons, 
under  the  headship  of  one  Guimond,  and  the 
patronage  of  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury.      Whoever 

39 


Oxford 

goes  into  Christ  Church  new  buildings  from  the 
river-side,  will  see,  in  the  old  edifice  facing  him, 
a  certain  bulging  in  the  wall.  That  is  the  mark 
of  the  pulpit,  whence  a  brother  used  to  read 
aloud  to  the  brethren  in  the  refectory  of  St. 
Frideswyde.  The  new  leaven  of  learning  was 
soon  to  ferment  in  an  easy  Oxford,  where  men 
lived  pro  libito^  under  good  lords,  the  D'Oilys, 
who  loved  the  English,  and  built,  not  churches 
and  bridges  only,  but  the  great  and  famous 
Oseney  Abbey,  beyond  the  church  of  St. 
Thomas,  and  not  very  far  from  the  modern 
station  of  the  Great  Western  Railway.  Yet 
even  after  public  teaching  in  Oxford  certainly 
began,  after  Master  Robert  Puleyn  lectured 
in  divinity  there  (1133  ;  cf.  Oseney  Chronicle)^ 
the  tower  was  burned  down  by  Stephen's 
soldiery  in  1141  {Oseney  Chronicle^^,  24). 


40 


THE    EARLY   STUDENTS— A 

DAY   WITH   A   MEDIEVAL 

UNDERGRADUATE 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  EARLY  STUDENTS— A  DAY  WITH  A 
MEDIEVAL  UNDERGRADUATE 

OXFORD,  some  one  says,  '  is  bitterly  his- 
torical.' It  is  difficult  to  escape  the 
fanaticism  of  Antony  Wood,  and  of 
'  our  antiquary,'  Bryan  Twyne,  when  one  deals 
with  the  obscure  past  of  the  University.  Indeed, 
it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  strange  blend- 
ing of  new  and  old  at  Oxford — the  old  names 
with  the  new  meanings — if  we  avert  our  eyes 
from  what  is  '  bitterly  historical.'  For  example, 
there  is  in  most,  perhaps  in  all,  colleges  a  custom 
called  '  collections.'  On  the  last  days  of  term 
undergraduates  are  called  into  the  Hall,  where 
the  Master  and  the  Dean  of  the  Chapel  sit  in 
solemn  state.  Examination  papers  are  set,  but 
no  one  heeds  them  very  much.  The  real  ordeal 
is  the  awful  interview  with  the  Master  and  the 

43 


Oxford 

Dean.  The  former  regards  you  with  the  eyes 
of  a  judge,  while  the  Dean  says,  '  Master,  I  am 
pleased  to  say  that  Mr.  Brown's  papers  are  very 
fair,  very  fair.  But  in  the  matters  of  chapels  and 
of  catechetics^  Mr.  Brown  sets — for  a  scholar — a 
very  bad  example  to  the  other  undergraduates.  He 
has  only  once  attended  divine  service  on  Sunday 
morning,  and  on  that  occasion,  Master,  his  dress 
consisted  exclusively  of  a  long  great-coat  and  a 
pair  of  boots.'  After  this  accusation  the  Master 
will  turn  to  the  culprit  and  observe,  with  em- 
phasis ill  represented  by  italics,  '  Mr.  Brown,  the 
College  cannot  hear  with  pleasure  of  such  beha- 
viour on  the  part  of  a  scholar.  You  are  gated^ 
Mr.  Brown,  for  the  first  fortnight  of  next  term.' 
Now  why  should  this  tribunal  of  the  Master  and 
the  Dean,  and  this  dread  examination,  be  called 
collections  ?  Because  [Munimenta  Academica^ 
Oxon.,  i.  129)  in  133 1  a  statute  was  passed  to 
the  effect  that  '  every  scholar  shall  pay  at  least 
twelve  pence  a-year  for  lectures  in  logic,  and 
for  physics  eighteenpence  a-year,'  and  that  '  all 
44 


The  Early  Students 

Masters  of  Arts  except  persons  of  royal  or  noble 
family,  shall  be  obliged  to  collect  their  salary 
from  the  scholars.'  This  collectmt  would 
be  made  at  the  end  of  term  ;  and  the  name 
survives,  attached  to  the  solemn  day  of  doom 
we  have  described,  though  the  college  dues  are 
now  collected  by  the  bursar  at  the  beginning 
of  each  term. 

By  this  trivial  example  the  perversions  of 
old  customs  at  Oxford  are  illustrated.  To 
appreciate  the  life  of  the  place,  then,  we  must 
glance  for  a  moment  at  the  growth  of  the 
University.  As  to  its  origin,  we  know  abso- 
lutely nothing.  That  Master  Puleyn  began  to 
lecture  there  in  1 1 3  3  we  have  seen,  and  it  is  not 
likely  that  he  would  have  chosen  Oxford  if 
Oxford  had  possessed  no  schools.  About  these 
schools,  however,  we  have  no  information.  They 
may  have  grown  up  out  of  the  seminary  which, 
perhaps,  was  connected  with  St.  Frideswyde's, 
just  as  Paris  University  may  have  had  some 
connection    with    '  the    School    of  the    Palace.' 

45 


Oxford 

Certainly  to  Paris  University  the  academic  cor- 
poration of  Oxford,  the  Universitas^  owed  many 
of  her  regulations  ;  while,  again,  the  founder  of 
the  college  system,  Walter  de  Merton  (who 
visited  Paris  in  company  with  Henry  iii.),  may 
have  compared  ideas  with  Robert  de  Sorbonne, 
the  founder  of  the  college  of  that  name.  In  the 
early  Oxford,  however,  of  the  twelfth  and  most 
of  the  thirteenth  centuries,  colleges  with  their 
statutes  were  unknown.  The  University  was 
the  only  corporation  of  the  learned,  and  she 
struggled  into  existence  after  hard  fights  with 
the  town,  the  Jews,  the  Friars,  the  Papal  courts. 
The  history  of  the  University  begins  with  the 
thirteenth  century.  She  may  be  said  to  have 
come  into  being  as  soon  as  she  possessed  com- 
mon funds  and  rents,  as  soon  as  fines  were 
assigned,  or  benefactions  contributed  to  the 
maintenance  of  scholars.  Now  the  first  re- 
corded fine  is  the  payment  of  fifty-two  shillings 
by  the  townsmen  of  Oxford  as  part  of  the  com- 
pensation for  the  hanging  of  certain  clerks.  In 
46 


"The  Early  Students 

the  year  12 14  the  Papal  Legate,  in  a  letter  to 
his  '  beloved  sons  in  Christ,  the  burgesses  of 
Oxford,'  bade  them  excuse  the  '  scholars  study- 
ing in  Oxford'  half  the  rent  of  their  halls,  or 
hospitia,  for  the  space  of  ten  years.  The 
burghers  were  also  to  do  penance,  and  to  feast 
the  poorer  students  once  a  year  ;  but  the  im- 
portant point  is,  that  they  had  to  pay  that  large 
yearly  fine  '  propter  suspendium  clericorum ' — 
all  for  the  hanging  of  the  clerks.  Twenty-six 
years  after  this  decision  of  the  Legate,  Robert 
Grossteste,  the  great  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  organised 
the  payment  and  distribution  of  the  fine,  and 
founded  the  first  of  the  chests^  the  chest  of  St. 
Frideswyde.  These  chests  were  a  kind  of  Mont 
de  Piete,  and  to  found  them  was  at  first  the 
favourite  form  of  benefaction.  Money  was  left 
in  this  or  that  chesty  from  which  students  and 
masters  would  borrow,  on  the  security  of  pledges, 
which  were  generally  books,  cups,  daggers,  and 
so  forth. 

Now,  in  this  affair  of  12 14  we  have  a  strange 

47 


Oxford 

passage  of  history,  which  happily  illustrates  the 
growth  of  the  University.  The  beginning  of  the 
whole  affair  was  the  quarrel  with  the  town, 
which,  in  1209,  had  hanged  two  clerks,  'in 
contempt  of  clerical  liberty.'  The  matter  was 
taken  up  by  the  Legate — in  those  bad  years  of 
King  John  the  Pope's  viceroy  in  England — and 
out  of  the  humiliation  of  the  town  the  Univer- 
sity gained  money,  privileges,  and  halls  at  low 
rental.  These  were  precisely  the  things  that  the 
University  wanted.  About  these  matters  there 
was  a  constant  strife,  in  which  the  Kings,  as  a 
rule,  took  part  with  the  University.  The  Uni- 
versity possessed  the  legal  knowledge,  which  the 
monarchs  liked  to  have  on  their  side,  and  was 
therefore  favoured  by  them.  Thus,  in  123 1 
(Wood,  Anfials^  i.  205),  'the  King  sent  out  his 
Breve  to  the  Mayor  and  Burghers  commanding 
them  not  to  overrate  their  houses '  ;  and  thus 
gradually  the  University  got  the  command  of 
the  police,  obtained  privileges  which  enslaved 
the  city,  and  became  masters  where  they  had 
48 


The  Early  Students 

once  been  despised,  starveling  scholars.  The 
process  was  always  the  same.  On  the  feast  of 
St.  Scholastica,  for  example,  in  1354,  Walter  de 
Springheuse,  Roger  de  Chesterfield,  and  other 
clerks,  swaggered  into  the  Swyndlestock  tavern 
in  Carfax,  began  to  speak  ill  of  John  de  Croy- 
don's wine,  and  ended  by  pitching  the  tankard 
at  the  head  of  that  vintner.  In  ten  minutes  the 
town  bell  at  St.  Martin's  was  rung,  and  the  most 
terrible  of  all  Town-and-Gown  rows  began.  The 
Chancellor  could  do  no  less  than  bid  St.  Mary's 
bell  reply  to  St.  Martin's,  and  shooting  com- 
menced. The  Gown  held  their  own  very  well 
at  first,  and  '  defended  themselves  till  Vespertide,' 
when  the  citizens  called  in  their  neighbours,  the 
rustics  of  Cowley,  Headington,  and  Hincksey. 
The  results  have  been  precisely  described  in 
anticipation  by  Homer  : 

To^pa  8'  ap'  oi-)(o\x.evoi  KLKOve<;  Kt/cofecrcrt  yeycovevu 
ol  (T(f)li'  yeiTove^  rjcrav  afxa  nXeoue^;  koh  apeiov^ 

■^/w-os  8'  'HeXtos  ixeTevLO-creTO  /SovXvrouSe 

Kol  Tore  hr)  KtVoves  KhXvav  Sa/xaaai/res  'k^aiov<;. 

D  49 


Oxford 

Which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  '  The  townsfolk  call 
for  help  to  their  neighbours,  the  yokels,  that  were 
more  numerous  than  they,  and  better  men  in 
battle  ...  so  when  the  sun  turned  to  the  time 
of  the  loosing  of  oxen  the  Town  drave  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Gown,  and  won  the  victory.'  They 
were  strong,  the  townsmen,  but  not  merciful. 
'  The  crowns  of  some  chaplains,  viz.  all  the  skin 
so  far  as  the  tonsure  went,  these  diabolical  imps 
flayed  off"  in  scorn  of  their  clergy,'  and  '  some 
poor  innocents  these  confounded  sons  of  Satan 
knocked  down,  beat,  and  most  cruelly  wounded.' 
The  result,  in  the  long  run,  was  that  the  Uni- 
versity received  from  Edward  iii.  'a  most  large 
charter,  containing  many  liberties,  some  that 
they  had  before,  and  others  that  he  had  taken 
away  from  the  townJ  Thus  Edward  granted  to 
the  University  '  the  custody  of  the  assize  of 
bread,  wine,  and  ale,'  the  supervising  of  measures 
and  weights,  the  sole  power  of  clearing  the  streets 
of  the  town  and  suburbs.  Moreover,  the  Mayor 
and  the  chief  Burghers  were  condemned  yearly 
50 


T'he  Early  Stuaents 

to  a  sort  of  public  penance  and  humiliation  on 
St.  Scholastica's  Day.  Thus,  by  the  middle  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  the  strife  of  Town  and 
Gown  had  ended  in  the  complete  victory  of  the 
latter. 

Though  the  University  owed  its  success  to  its 
clerkly  character,  and  though  the  Legate  backed 
it  with  all  the  power  of  Rome,  yet  the  scholars 
were  Englishmen  and  Liberals  first.  Catholics  next. 
Thus  they  had  all  English  sympathy  with  them 
when  they  quarrelled  with  the  Legate  in  1238, 
and  shot  his  cook  (who,  indeed,  had  thrown  hot 
broth  at  them)  ;  and  thus,  in  later  days,  the 
undergraduates  were  with  Simon  de  Montfort 
against  King  Henry,  and  aided  the  barons  with 
a  useful  body  of  archers.  The  University,  too, 
constantly  withstood  the  Friars,  who  had  settled 
in  Oxford  on  pretence  of  wishing  to  convert  the 
Jews,  and  had  attempted  to  get  education  into 
their  hands.  '  The  Preaching  Friars,  who  had 
lately  obtained  from  the  Pope  divers  privileges, 
particularly   an    exemption,    as    they  pretended, 

51 


Oxford 

from  being  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
University,  began  to  behave  themselves  very- 
insolent  against  the  Chancellors  and  Masters.' 
(Wood,  Annals^  i.  399.)  The  conduct  of  the 
Friars  caused  endless  appeals  to  Rome,  and  in 
this  matter,  too,  Oxford  was  stoutly  national, 
and  resisted  the  Pope,  as  it  had,  on  occasions, 
defied  the  King.  The  King's  Jews,  too,  the 
University  kept  in  pretty  good  order,  and  when, 
in  1268,  a  certain  Hebrew  snatched  the  crucifix 
from  the  hand  of  the  Chancellor  and  trod  it 
under  foot,  his  tribesmen  were  compelled  to 
raise  '  a  fair  and  stately  cross  of  marble,  very 
curiously  wrought,'  on  the  scene  of  the  sacri- 
lege. 

The  growth  in  power  and  importance  of 
academic  corporations  having  now  been  sketched, 
let  us  try  to  see  what  the  outer  aspect  of  the 
town  was  like  in  these  rude  times,  and  what 
manner  of  life  the  undergraduates  led.  For  this 
purpose  we  may  be  allowed  to  draw  a  rude,  but 
not   unfaithful,  picture  of  a  day  in  a  student's 

52 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

life.  No  incident  will  be  introduced  for  which 
there  is  not  authority,  in  Wood,  or  in  Mr. 
Anstey's  invaluable  documents,  the  Mu?timenta 
Acade77iica^  published  in  the  collection  of  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls.  Some  latitude  as  to  dates 
must  be  allowed,  it  is  true,  and  we  are  not  of 
course  to  suppose  that  any  one  day  of  life  was 
ever  so  gloriously  crowded  as  that  of  our  under- 
graduate. 

The  time  is  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  The  forest  and  the  moor  stretch  to 
the  east  gate  of  the  city.  Magdalen  bridge  is 
not  yet  built,  nor  of  course  the  tower  of  Mag- 
dalen, which  M.  Brunet-Debaines  has  sketched 
from  Christ  Church  walks.  Not  till  about 
1473  was  the  tower  built,  and  years  would  pass 
after  that  before  choristers  saluted  with  their 
fresh  voices  from  its  battlements  the  dawn  of  the 
first  of  May,  or  sermons  were  preached  from  the 
beautifril  stone  pulpit  in  the  open  air.  When 
our  undergraduate,  Walter  de  Stoke,  or,  more 
briefly,  Stoke,  was  at  Oxford,  the   spires  of  the 

53 


Oxford 

city  were  few.      Where  Magdalen   stands  now, 
the   old    Hospital   of  St.    John    then    stood — a 
foundation  of  Henry  iii. — but  the  Jews  were  no 
longer  allowed  to  bury  their  dead  in  the  close, 
which  is  now  the  '  Physic  Garden.'     '  In  1289,' 
as   Wood   says,    'the  Jews  were  banished  from 
England  for  various  enormities  and  crimes  com- 
mitted by  them.'     The  Great  and  Little  Jewries 
—  those     dim,     populous     streets    behind     the 
modern    Post    OfSce  —  had    been    sacked    and 
gutted.     No  clerk  would  ever  again  risk  his  soul 
for  a  fair  Jewess's  sake,  nor  lose  his  life  for  his 
love  at  the  hands  of  that   eminent  theologian, 
Fulke    de    Breaute.       The    beautiful    tower    of 
Merton   was   still   almost  fresh,   and   the   spires 
of  St.  Mary's,  of  old  All  Saints,  of  St.  Frides- 
wyde,   and   the   strong  tower   of  New   College 
on    the    city    wall,    were    the    most    prominent 
features  in  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  town.      But 
though   part   of   Merton,    certainly    the    chapel 
tower  as  we  have  seen,  the  odd  muniment-room 
with    the    steep    stone   roof,  and,  perhaps,   the 
54 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

Library,  existed  ;  though  New  was  built  ;  and 
though  Balhol  and  University  owned  some  halls, 
on,  or  near,  the  site  of  the  present  colleges, 
Oxford  was  still  an  university  of  poor  scholars, 
who  lived  in  town's-people's  dwellings. 

Thus,  in  the  great  quarrel  with  the  Legate 
in  1238,  John  Currey,  of  Scotland,  boarded 
with  Will  Maynard,  while  Hugh  le  Verner 
abode  in  the  house  of  Osmund  the  Miller,  with 
Raynold  the  Irishman  and  seven  of  his  fellows. 
John  Mortimer  and  Rob  Norensis  lodged  with 
Augustine  Gosse,  and  Adam  de  Wolton  lodged 
in  Cat  Street,  where  you  can  still  see  the  curious 
arched  doorway  of  Catte's,  or  St.  Catherine's 
Hall.  By  the  time  of  my  hero,  Walter  Stoke, 
the  King  had  not  yet  decreed  that  all  scholars 
of  years  of  discretion  should  live  in  the  house 
of  some  sufficient  principal  (142 1)  ;  so  let  him 
lodge  at  Catte  Hall,  at  the  corner  of  the  street 
that  leads  to  New  College  out  of  the  modern 
Broad  Street,  which  was  then  the  City  Ditch. 
It  is  six  o'clock  on  a  summer  morning,  and  the 

SS 


Oxford 

bells  waken  Stoke,  who  is  sleeping  on  a  flock 
bed,  in  his  little  camera.  His  room,  though  he 
is  not  one  of  the  luxurious  clerks  whom  the 
University  scolds  in  various  statutes,  is  pretty 
well  furnished.  His  bed  alone  is  worth  not  less 
than  fifteenpence  ;  he  has  a  '  cofer '  valued  at 
twopence  (we  have  plenty  of  those  old  valua- 
tions), and  in  his  cofer  are  his  black  coat,  which 
no  one  would  think  dear  at  fourpence,  his  tunic, 
cheap  at  tenpence,  '  a  roll  of  the  seven  Psalms,' 
and  twelve  books  only  '  at  his  beddes  heed.' 
Stoke  has  not 

'  Twenty  bookes,  clothed  in  blak  and  reed, 
Of  Aristotil  and  of  his  philosophie,' 

like  Chaucer's  Undergraduate,  who  must  have 
been  a  bibliophile.  There  are  not  many  re- 
cords of  '  as  many  as  twenty  bookes '  in  the 
old  valuations.  The  great  ornament  of  the 
room  is  a  neat  trophy  of  buckler,  bow,  arrows, 
and  two  daggers,  all  hanging  conveniently  on 
the  wall.  Stoke  opens  his  eyes,  yawns,  looks 
round  for  his  clothes,  and  sees,  with  no  surprise, 
S6 


Mertoii    Library,    built    in    1349   by   William    Rede,   Bishop 

of  Winchester,    and   considered   to  be   one   ot  the 

oldest   libraries  in  England. 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

that  his  laundress  has  not  sent  home  his  clean 
linen.  No  ;  Christina,  of  the  parish  of  St. 
Martin,  who  used  to  be  Stoke's  lotrix^  has  been 
detected  at  last.  '  Under  pretence  of  washing 
for  scholars,  multa  mala  perpetrata  fuerunt^ 
she  has  committed  all  manner  of  crimes,  and  is 
now  in  the  Spinning  House,  carcerata  fuit. 
Stoke  wastes  a  malediction  on  the  laundress, 
and,  dressing  as  well  as  he  may,  runs  down  to 
Parson's  Pleasure,  I  hope,  and  has  a  swim,  for 
I  find  no  tub  in  his  room,  or,  indeed,  in  the 
ca7nera  of  any  other  scholar.  It  is  now  time  to 
go,  not  to  chapel — for  Catte's  has  no  chapel — 
but  to  parish  Church,  and  Stoke  goes  very 
devoutly  to  St.  Peter's,  where  we  shall  find  him 
again,  later  in  the  day,  in  another  mood. 
About  eight  o'clock  he  '  commonises '  with  a 
Paris  man,  Henricus  de  Bourges,  who  has  an 
admirable  mode  of  cooking  omelettes,  which 
makes  his  company  much  sought  after  at  break- 
fast-time. The  University,  in  old  times,  was 
full  of  French  students,  as  Paris  was  thronged 

SI 


Oxford 

by  Englishmen.  Lectures  begin  at  nine,  and 
first  there  is  lecture  in  the  hall  by  the  principal 
of  Catte's.  That  scholar  receives  his  pupils  in 
a  bare  room,  where  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
the  students  are  allowed  to  sit  down.  From 
the  curious  old  seal  of  the  University  of  St. 
Andrews,  however,  it  appears  that  the  luxury 
of  forms  was  permitted,  in  Scotland,  to  all  but 
the  servitors,  who  held  the  lecturer's  candles. 
The  principal  of  Catte's  is  in  academic  dress, 
and  wears  a  black  cape,  boots,  and  a  hood. 
The  undergraduates  have  no  distinguishing  cos- 
tume. After  an  hour  or  two  of  viva  voce 
exercises  in  the  grammar  of  Priscian,  prepara- 
tory lecture  is  over,  and  a  reading  man  will 
hurry  off  to  the  ^  schools,'  a  set  of  low-roofed 
buildings  between  St.  Mary's  and  Brasenose. 
There  he  will  find  the  Divinity  '  school '  or 
lecture-room  in  the  place  of  honour,  with 
Medicine  on  one  hand  and  Law  on  the  other  ; 
the  lecture-rooms  for  grammar,  rhetoric,  logic, 
arithmetic,  music,  geometry,  and  astronomy,  for 
58 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

metaphysics,  ethics,  and  '  the  tongues,'  stretching 
down  School  Street  on  either  side.  Here  the 
Pra^lectors  are  holding  forth,  and  all  newly 
made  Masters  of  Arts  are  bound  to  teach  their 
subject  regere  scholas^  whether  they  like  it  or 
not.  Our  friend.  Master  Stoke,  however,  is  on 
pleasure  bent,  and  means  to  pay  his  fine  of  two- 
pence for  omitting  lecture,  and  go  off  to  the 
festival  of  his  nation  (he  is  of  the  Southern 
nation,  and  hates  Scotch,  Welsh,  and  Irish)  in 
the  parish  Church.  He  stops  in  the  Flower 
Market  and  at  a  barber's  shop  on  his  way  to  St. 
Peter's,  and  comes  forth  a  wonderful  pagan 
figure  with  a  Bacchic  mask  covering  his  honest 
countenance,  with  horns  protruding  through  a 
wig  of  tow,  with  vine-leaves  twisted  in  and  out 
of  the  horns,  and  roses  stuck  wherever  there  is 
room  for  roses.  Henricus  de  Bourges,  and  half 
a  dozen  Picardy  men,  with  some  merry  souls 
fi-om  the  Southern  side  of  the  Thames,  are 
jigging  down  the  High,  playing  bag-pipes  and 
guitars.      To  these  Stoke  joins  himself,  and  they 

59     ' 


Oxford 

waltz  joyously  into  the  church,  and  in  and  out 
of  the  gateways  of  the  different  halls,  singing, — 

'  Mihi  est  propositum  in  taberna  mori, 
Vinum  sit  appositum  morientis  ori, 
Ut  dicant,  quum  venerint,  angelorum  chori 
Deus  sit  propitius  huic  potatori.' 

The  students  of  the  Northern  nations  mock,  of 
course,  at  these  revellers,  thumbs  are  bitten, 
threats  exchanged,  and  we  shall  see  what  comes 
of  the  quarrel.  But  the  hall  bells  chime  half- 
past  noon  ;  it  is  dinner-time  in  Oxford,  and 
Stoke,  as  he  throws  off  his  mask  {larva)  and 
vine-leaves,  mutters  to  himself  the  equivalent  for 
'  there  will  be  a  row  about  this.'  There  will, 
indeed,  for  the  penalty  is  not  '  crossing  at  the 
buttery,'  nor  '  gating,'  but — excommunication  ! 
{Munim.  Academ.^  i.  i8.)  Dinner  is  not  a 
very  quiet  affair,  for  the  Catte's  men  have  had  to 
fight  for  their  beer  in  the  pubHc  streets  with 
some  Canterbury  College  fellows  who  were  set 
on  by  their  Warden,  of  all  people,  to  commit 
this  violence  (ut  vi  et  violentia  raperent  cere- 
bo 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

visiam  aliorum  scholarum  in  vico)  :  however, 
Catte's  has  had  the  best  of  it,  and  there  is  beer 
in  plenty.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  fish  is 
scarce,  for  certain  *  forestallers  '  [regratarit) 
have  been  buying  up  salmon  and  soles,  and 
refusing  to  sell  them  at  less  than  double  the 
proper  price.  On  the  whole,  however,  there 
was  a  rude  abundance  of  meat  and  bread  ;  in- 
deed. Stoke  may  have  fared  better  in  Catte's  than 
the  modern  undergraduate  does  in  the  hall  of 
the  college  protected  by  St.  Catherine.  After 
dinner  there  would  be  lecture  in  Lent,  but  we 
are  not  in  Lent.  A  young  man's  fancy  lightly 
turns  to  the  Beaumont,  north  of  the  modern 
Beaumont  Street,  where  there  are  wide  playing- 
fields,  and  space  for  archery,  foot-ball,  stool-ball, 
and  other  sports.  Stoke  rushes  out  of  hall,  and 
runs  upstairs  into  the  camera  of  Roger  de 
Freshfield,  a  reading  man,  but  a  good  fellow. 
He  knocks  and  enters,  and  finds  Freshfield  over 
his  favourite  work,  the  Posterior  Analytics^  and 
a  pottle  of  strawberries.     '  Come  down  to  the 

6i 


Oxford 

Beaumont,  old  man,'  he  says,  '  and  play  pyked 
stafFe.'  Roger  is  disinclined  to  move,  he  must 
finish  the  Posterior  Analytics,  Stoke  lounges 
about,  in  the  eternal  fashion  of  undergraduates 
after  luncheon,  and  picking  up  the  Philohiblon 
of  Richard  de  Bury  (then  quite  a  new  book), 
clinches  his  argument  in  favour  of  pyke  and 
staffe  w^ith  a  quotation  :  '  You  will  perhaps  see 
a  stiff-necked  youth  lounging  sluggishly  in  his 
study.  .  .  .  He  is  not  ashamed  to  eat  fruit  and 
cheese  over  an  open  book,  and  to  transfer  his 
cup  from  side  to  side  upon  it.'  Thus  addressed, 
Roger  lays  aside  his  Analytics^  and  the  pair 
walk  down  by  Balliol,  to  the  Beaumont,  where 
pyked  staffe,  or  sword  and  buckler,  is  played. 
At  the  Beaumont  they  find  two  men  who  say 
that  '  sword  and  buckler  can  be  played  sofft  and 
ffayre,'  that  is,  without  hard  hitting,  and  with 
one  of  these  Stoke  begins  to  fence.  Alas  !  a 
dispute  arose  about  a  stroke,  the  by-standers 
interfered,  and  Stoke's  opponent  drew  his  hanger 
(ex  t  rax  it  cultellum  vocatum  hanger  e)^  and  hit 
62 


A  Medieval  Undergraduate 

one  John  Felerd  over  the  sconce.  On  this  the 
Proctors  come  up,  and  the  assailant  is  put  in 
Bocardo,  while  Stoke  goes  off  to  a  '  pass-supper ' 
given  by  an  inceptor^  who  has  just  taken  his 
degree.  These  suppers  were  not  voluntary 
entertainments,  but  enforced  by  law.  At  supper 
the  talk  ranges  over  University  gossip,  they  tell 
of  the  scholar  who  lately  tried  to  raise  the  devil 
in  Grope  Lane,  and  was  pleased  by  the  gentle- 
manly manner  of  the  foul  fiend.  They  speak  of 
the  Queen's  man,  who  has  just  been  plucked  for 
maintaining  that  Ego  currit^  or  ego  est  currens^ 
is  as  good  Latin  as  ego  curro.  Then  the  party 
breaks  up,  and  Stoke  goes  towards  Merton,  with 
some  undergraduates  of  that  college,  Bridling- 
ton, Alderberk,  and  Lymby.  At  the  corner  of 
Grope  Lane,  out  come  many  men  of  the  Northern 
nations,  armed  with  shields,  and  bows  and  arrows. 
Stoke  and  his  friends  run  into  Merton  for 
weapons,  and  ^  standing  in  a  window  of  that 
hall,  shot  divers  arrows,  and  one  that  Bridlington 
shot    hit    Henry  de    lisle,  and   David    Kirkby 

63 


Oxford 

unmercifully  perished,  for  after  John  de  Benton 
had  given  him  a  dangerous  wound  in  the  head 
with  his  faulchion,  came  Will  de  la  Hyde  and 
wounded  him  in  the  knee  with  his  sword.' 

These  were  rough  times,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  Stoke  had  a  brush  with  the 
Town  before  he  got  safely  back  to  Catte's  Hall. 
The  old  rudeness  gave  way  gradually,  as  the 
colleges  swallowed  up  the  irregular  halls,  and  as 
the  scholars  unattached, /;//a:;^<3^<9  nomine  Chamber- 
Dekyns^  ceased  to  exist.  Learning,  however, 
dwindled,  as  colleges  increased,  under  the 
clerical  and  reactionary  rule  of  the  House  of 
Lancaster. 


64 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND   THE 
REFORMATION 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  RENAISSANCE  AND  THE  REFORMATION 

WE  have  now  arrived  at  a  period  in  the 
history  of  Oxford  which  is  confused 
and  unhappy,  but  for  us  full  of 
interest,  and  perhaps  of  instruction.  The  hun- 
dred years  that  passed  by  between  the  age  of 
Chaucer  and  the  age  of  Erasmus  were,  in 
Southern  Europe,  years  of  the  most  eager  life. 
We  hear  very  often — too  often,  perhaps — of 
what  is  called  the  Renaissance,  The  energy 
of  delight  with  which  Italy  welcomed  the  new 
birth  of  art,  of  literature,  of  human  freedom,  has 
been  made  familiar  to  every  reader.  It  is  not 
with  Italy,  but  with  England  and  with  Oxford, 
that  we  are  concerned.  How  did  the  University 
and  the  colleges  prosper  in  that  strenuous  time 

67 


Oxford 

when  the  world  ran  after  loveHness  of  form  and 
colour,  as,  in  other  ages,  it  has  run  after  warlike 
renown,  or  the  far-off  rewards  of  the  saintly  life  ? 
What  was  Oxford  doing  when  Florence,  Venice, 
and  Rome  were  striving  towards  no  meaner 
goal  than  perfection  ? 

It  must  be  said  that  '  the  spring  came  slowly 
up  this  way.'  The  University  merely  reflected 
the  very  practical  character  of  the  people.  In 
contemplating  the  events  of  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries,  in  their  influence  on  Eng- 
lish civilisation,  we  are  reminded  once  more  of 
the  futility  of  certain  modern  aspirations.  No 
amount  of  University  Commissions,  nor  of  well- 
meant  reforms,  will  change  the  nature  of  English- 
men. It  is  impossible,  by  distributions  of  Uni- 
versity prizes  and  professorships,  to  attract  into 
the  career  of  letters  that  proportion  of  industry 
and  ingenuity  which,  in  Germany  for  example, 
is  devoted  to  the  scholastic  life.  Politics,  trade, 
law,  sport,  religion,  will  claim  their  own  in 
England,  just    as    they    did    at   the   Revival  of 

68 


The  Renaissance 

Letters.  The  illustrious  century  which  Italy 
employed  in  unburying,  appropriating,  and  enjoy- 
ing the  treasures  of  Greek  literature  and  art,  our 
fathers  gave,  in  England,  to  dynastic  and  con- 
stitutional squabbles,  and  to  religious  broils. 
The  Renaissance  in  England,  and  chiefly  in 
Oxford,  was  like  a  bitter  and  changeful  spring. 
There  was  an  hour  of  genial  warmth,  there 
breathed  a  wind  from  the  south,  in  the  lifetime 
of  Chaucer  ;  then  came  frosts  and  storms  ;  again 
the  brief  sunshine  of  court  favour  shone  on 
literature  for  a  while,  when  Henry  viii.  en- 
couraged study,  and  Wolsey  and  Fox  founded 
Christ  Church  and  Corpus  Christi  College ;  once 
more  the  bad  days  of  religious  strife  returned, 
and  the  promise  of  learning  was  destroyed. 
Thus  the  chief  result  of  the  awakening  thought 
of  the  fourteenth  century  in  England  was  not  a 
lively  delight  in  literature,  but  the  appearance  of 
the  Lollards.  The  intensely  practical  genius  of 
our  race  turned  not  to  letters,  but  to  questions 
about  the  soul  and  its  future,  about  property  and 

69 


Oxford 

its  distribution.  The  Lollards  were  put  down 
in  Oxford ;  '  the  tares  were  weeded  out '  by  the 
House  of  Lancaster,  and  in  the  process  the 
germs  of  free  thought,  of  originality,  and  of  a 
rational  education,  were  destroyed.  '  Wyclevism 
did  domineer  among  us,'  says  Wood  ;  and,  in 
fact,  the  intellect  of  the  University  was  absorbed, 
like  the  intellect  of  France  during  the  heat  of 
the  Jansenist  controversy,  in  defending  or  assail- 
ing '267  damned  conclusions,'  drawn  from  the 
books  of  Wyclif.  The  University  '  lost  many 
of  her  children  through  the  profession  of 
Wyclevism.'  Those  who  remained  were  often 
'  beneficed  clerks.'  The  Friars  lifted  up  their 
heads  again,  and  Oxford  was  becoming  a  large 
ecclesiastical  school.  As  the  University  declared 
to  Archbishop  Chichele  (1438),  'Our  noble 
mother,  that  was  blessed  in  so  goodly  an  off- 
spring, is  all  but  utterly  destroyed  and  desolate.' 
Presently  the  foreign  wars  and  the  wars  of  the 
Roses  drained  the  University  of  the  youth  of 
England.  The  country  was  overrun  with  hostile 
70 


"The  Renaissance 

forces,  or  infested  by  disbanded  soldiers.  Plague 
and  war,  war  and  plague,  and  confusion,  alter- 
nate in  the  annals.  Sickly  as  Oxford  is  to-day 
by  climate  and  situation,  she  is  a  city  of  health 
compared  to  what  she  was  in  the  middle  ages. 
In  1448  'a  pestilence  broke  out,  occasioned  by 
the  overflowing  of  waters,  ,  .  .  also  by  the 
lying  of  many  scholars  in  one  room  or  dormitory 
in  almost  every  Hall,  which  occasioned  nasty 
air  and  smells,  and  consequently  diseases.'  In 
the  general  dulness  and  squalor  two  things  were 
remarkable  :  one,  the  last  splendour  of  the  feudal 
time  ;  the  other,  the  first  dawn  of  the  new 
learning  from  Italy.  In  1452,  George  Neville 
of  Balliol,  brother  of  the  King-maker,  gave  the 
most  prodigious  pass-supper  that  was  ever  served 
in  Oxford.  On  the  first  day  there  were  600 
messes  of  meat,  divided  into  three  courses.  The 
second  course  is  worthy  of  the  attention  of  the 
epicure  2 


71 


Oxford 

SECOND    COURSE 

Vian  in  brase.  Carcell. 

Crane  in  sawce.  Partrych. 

Young  Pocock.  Venson  baked. 

Coney.  Fryed  meat  in  paste. 

Pigeons.  Lesh  Lumbert. 

Byttor.  A  Frutor. 

Curlew.  A  Sutteltee. 

Against  this  prodigious  gormandising  we 
must  set  that  noble  gift,  the  Library  presented 
to  Oxford  by  Duke  Humfrey  of  Gloucester.  In 
the  Catalogue,  drawn  up  in  1439,  we  mark 
many  books  of  the  utmost  value  to  the  impover- 
ished students.  Here  are  the  works  of  Plato, 
and  the  Ethics  and  Politics  of  Aristotle,  trans- 
lated by  Leonard  the  Aretine.  Here,  among 
the  numerous  writings  of  the  Fathers,  are  TuUy 
and  Seneca,  Averroes  and  Avicenna,  Bellum 
Trojae  cum  secretis  secretorum^  Apuleius,  Aulus 
Gellius,  Livy,  Boccaccio,  Petrarch.  Here,  with 
Ovid's  verses,  is  the  Commentary  on  Dante,  and 
his  Divine  Comedy,  Here,  rarest  of  all,  is  a  Greek 
Dictionary,  the  silent  father  of  Liddel's  and 
Scott's  to  be. 

72 


'The  Renaissance 

The    most    hopeful    fact    in   the   University 
annals,  after   the   gift  of  those    manuscripts   (to 
which    the    very   beauty   of  their    illuminations 
proved  ruinous  in  Puritan  times),  w^as  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  printing-press  at  Oxford,  and  the 
arrival    of  certain    Italians,    'to    propagate   and 
settle  the  studies  of  true  and  genuine  humanity 
among  us.'     The  exact  date  of  the  introduction 
of  printing  let  us  leave  to  be  determined  by  the 
learned  writer  who  is  now  at  work  on  the  history 
of  Oxford.      The  advent  of  the  ItaHans  is  dated 
by  Wood  in  1488.    Polydore  Virgil  had  lectured 
in  New  College.      '  He  first  of  all  taught  litera- 
ture   in    Oxford.       Cyprianus    and     Nicholaus, 
Italici^   also   arrived  and   dined  with  the  Vice- 
President  of  Magdalen  on  Christmas  Day.      Lily 
and  Colet,   too,  one  of  them  the  founder,  the 
other  the  first  Head  Master,  of  St.  Paul's  School, 
were  about  this  time  studying  in  Italy,  under  the 
great  Politian  and  Hermolaus  Barbarus.    Oxford, 
which  had  so  long  been  in  hostile  communica- 
tion   with    Italy    as    represented   by  the    Papal 

73 


Oxford 

Courts,  at  last  touched,  and  was  thrilled  by  the 
electric  current  of  Italian  civilisation.  At  this 
conjuncture  of  affairs,  who  but  is  reminded  of 
the  youth  and  the  education  of  Gargantua  ? 
Till  the  very  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
Oxford  had  been  that  '  huge  barbarian  pupil,' 
and  had  revelled  in  vast  Rabelaisian  suppers  : 
'  of  fat  beeves  he  had  killed  three  hundred  sixty 
seven  thousand  and  fourteen,  that  in  the  entering 
in  of  spring  he  might  have  plenty  of  powdered 
beef  The  bill  of  fare  of  George  Neville's  feast 
is  like  one  of  the  catalogues  dear  to  the  Cure  of 
Meudon.  For  Oxford,  as  for  Gargantua,  '  they 
appointed  a  great  sophister-doctor,  that  read  him 
Donatus,  Theodoletus,  and  Alanus,  in  parabolis' 
Oxford  spent  far  more  than  Gargantua  s  eighteen 
years  and  eleven  months  over  '  the  book  de 
Modis  significandis,  with  the  commentaries  of 
Berlinguandus  and  a  rabble  of  others.'  Now, 
under  Colet,  and  Erasmus  (1497),  Oxford  was 
put,  like  Gargantua,  under  new  masters,  and 
learned  that  the  old  scholarship  '  had  been  but 
74 


The  Renaissance 

brutishness,  and  the  old  wisdom  but  blunt, 
foppish  toys  serving  only  to  bastardise  noble 
spirits,  and  to  corrupt  all  the  flower  of  youth.' 

The  prospects  of  classical  learning  at  Oxford 
(and,  whatever  may  be  the  case  to-day,  on 
classical  learning  depended,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  fortunes  of  European  literature) 
now  seemed  fair  enough.  People  from  the  very 
source  of  knowledge  were  lecturing  in  Oxford. 
Wolsey  was  Bursar  of  Magdalen.  The  colleges, 
to  which  B.  N-  C.  was  added  in  1509,  and  C.  C.  C. 
in  15 1 6,  were  competing  with  each  other  for 
success  in  the  New  Learning.  Fox,  the  founder 
of  C.  C.  C,  established  in  his  college  two  chairs 
of  Greek  and  Latin,  '  to  extirpate  barbarism.' 
Meanwhile,  Cambridge  had  to  hire  an  Italian 
to  write  public  speeches  at  twenty  pence  each  ! 
Henry  viii.  in  his  youth  was,  like  Francis  i., 
the  patron  of  literature,  as  literature  was  under- 
stood in  Italy.  He  saw  in  learning  a  new 
splendour  to  adorn  his  court,  a  new  source  of 
intellectual   luxury,  though  even  Henry  had  an 

IS 


Oxford 

eye  on  the  theological  aspect  of  letters.  Be- 
tween 1500  and  1530  Oxford  was  noisy  with 
the  clink  of  masons'  hammers  and  chisels.  Brase- 
nose,  Corpus,  and  the  magnificent  kitchen  of 
Christ  Church,  were  being  erected.  (The 
beautiful  staircase,  which  M.  Brunet-Debaines 
has  sketched,  was  not  finished  till  1640.  The 
world  owes  it  to  Dr.  Fell.  The  Oriel  niches, 
designed  in  the  illustration,  are  of  rather  later 
date.)  The  streets  were  crowded  with  carts, 
dragging  in  from  all  the  neighbouring  quarries 
stones  for  the  future  homes  of  the  fair  humanities. 
Erasmus  found  in  Oxford  a  kind  of  substitute  for 
the  Platonic  Society  of  Florence.  ^  He  would 
hardly  care  much  about  going  to  Italy  at  all, 
except  for  the  sake  of  having  been  there.  .  .  . 
When  I  listen  to  Colet,  it  seems  to  me  like 
listening  to  Plato  himself;  and  he  praises  the 
judgment  and  learning  of  those  Englishmen, 
Grocyn  and  Linacre,  who  had  been  taught  in 
Italy. 

In  spite  of  all  this  promise,  the  Renaissance 

76 


Holywell     Street,     containing    some     intcresnng     examples 

of  old  domestic  architecture,  with  New  College  on 

the   left. 


"The  Renaissance 

in  England  was  rotten  at  the  root.  Theology 
killed  it,  or,  at  the  least,  breathed  on  it  a  deadly 
blight.  Our  academic  forefathers  '  drove  at 
practice,'  and  saw  everything  with  the  eyes  of 
party  men,  and  of  men  who  recognised  no 
interest  save  that  of  religion.  It  is  Mr.  See- 
bohm  [Oxford  Reformers^  i^^?)?  I  think,  who 
detects,  in  Colet's  concern  with  the  religious 
side  of  literature,  the  influence  of  Savonarola. 
When  in  Italy  '  he  gave  himself  entirely  to  the 
study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.'  He  brought  to 
England  from  Italy,  not  the  early  spirit  of  Pico 
of  Mirandola,  the  delightful  freedom  of  his 
youth,  but  his  later  austerity,  his  later  concern 
with  the  harmony  of  scripture  and  philosophy. 
The  book  which  the  dying  Petrarch  held  wist- 
fully in  his  hands,  revering  its  very  material 
shape,  though  he  could  not  spell  its  contents, 
was  the  Iliad  of  Homer.  The  book  which  the 
young  Renaissance  held  in  its  hands  in  England, 
with  reverence  and  eagerness  as  strong  and 
tender,  contained  the  Epistles  of  St.   Paul.      It 

77 


Oxford 

was  on  the  Epistles  that  Colet  lectured  in 
1496-97,  when  doctors  and  abbots  flocked  to 
hear  him,  with  their  note-books  in  their  hands. 
Thus  Oxford  differed  from  Florence,  England 
from  Italy  :  the  former  all  intent  on  what  it 
believed  to  be  the  very  Truth,  the  latter  all 
absorbed  on  what  it  knew  to  be  no  other  than 
Beauty  herself. 

We  cannot  afford  to  regret  the  choice  that 
England  and  Oxford  made.  The  search  for 
Truth  was  as  certain  to  bring  '  not  peace  but 
a  sword '  as  the  search  for  Beauty  was  to  bring 
the  decadence  of  Italy,  the  corruption  of 
manners,  the  slavery  of  two  hundred  years. 
Still,  our  practical  earnestness  did  rob  Oxford 
of  the  better  side  of  the  Renaissance.  It  is  not 
possible  here  to  tell  the  story  of  religious  and 
social  changes,  which  followed  so  hard  upon 
each  other,  in  the  reigns  of  Henry  viii., 
Edward  vi.,  Mary,  and  Elizabeth.  A  few 
moments  in  these  stormy  years  are  still  memor- 
able for  some  terrible  or  ludicrous  event 

78 


The  Reformation 

That  Oxford  was  rather  '  Trojan '  than 
*  Greek,'  that  men  were  more  concerned  about 
their  dinners  and  their  souls  than  their  prosody 
and  philosophy,  in  153 1,  is  proved  by  the 
success  of  Grynaeus.  He  visited  the  University 
and  carried  off  quantities  of  MSS.,  chiefly  Neo- 
platonic,  on  which  no  man  set  any  value.  Yet, 
in  1535,  Layton,  a  Commissioner,  wrote  to 
Cromwell  that  he  and  his  companions  had 
established  the  New  Learning  in  the  University. 
A  Lecture  in  Greek  was  founded  in  Magdalen, 
two  chairs  of  Greek  and  Latin  in  New,  two  in 
All  Souls,  and  two  already  existed,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  C.  C.  C.  This  Layton  is  he  that  took 
a  Rabelaisian  and  unquotable  revenge  on  that 
old  tyrant  of  the  Schools,  Duns  Scotus.  '  We 
have  set  Dunce  in  Bocardo,  and  utterly  banished 
him  Oxford  for  ever,  with  all  his  blind  glosses. 
.  .  .  And  the  second  time  we  came  to  New 
College  we  found  all  the  great  quadrant  full  of 
the  leaves  of  Dunce,  the  wind  blowing  them 
into    every    corner.       And    there    we    found    a 

79 


Oxford 

certain  Mr.  Greenfield,  a  gentleman  of  Bucking- 
hamshire, gathering  up  part  of  the  same  books' 
leaves,  as  he  said,  therewith  to  make  him  sewers 
or  hlanshers^  to  keep  the  deer  within  his  wood, 
thereby  to  have  the  better  cry  with  his  hounds.' 
Ah  !  if  the  University  Commissioners  would 
only  set  Aristotle,  and  Messrs.  Ritter  and 
Preller,  '  in  Bocardo,'  many  a  young  gentleman 
out  of  Buckinghamshire  and  other  counties 
would  joyously  help  in  the  good  work,  and  use 
the  pages,  if  not  for  hlanshers^  for  other  sportive 
purposes  ! 

'  Habent  sua  fata  libelli^  as  Terentianus 
Maurus  says,  in  a  frequently  quoted  verse.  If 
Cromwell's  Commissioners  were  hard  on  Duns, 
the  Visitors  of  Edward  vi.  were  ruthless  in  their 
condemnation  of  everything  that  smacked  of 
Popery  or  of  magic.  Evangelical  religion  in 
England  has  never  been  very  favourable  to 
learning.  Thus,  in  1550,  'the  ancient  libraries 
were  by  their  appointment  rifled.  Many  manu- 
scripts, guilty  of  no  other  superstition  than  red 

80 


"The  Reformation 

letters  in  the  front  or  titles,  were  condemned  to 
the  fire.  .  .  .  Such  books  wherein  appeared 
angles  were  thought  sufficient  to  be  destroyed, 
because  accounted  Papish  or  diabolical,  or  both.' 
A  cart-load  of  MSS.,  lucubrations  of  the 
Fellows  of  Merton,  chiefly  in  controversial 
divinity,  was  taken  away  ;  but,  by  the  good 
services  of  one  Herks,  a  Dutchman,  many  books 
were  preserved,  and,  later,  entered  the  Bodleian 
Library.  The  world  can  spare  the  controversial 
manuscripts  of  the  Fellows  of  Merton,  but  who 
knows  what  invaluable  scrolls  may  have  perished 
in  the  Puritan  bonfire  !  Persons,  the  librarian 
of  Balliol,  sold  old  books  to  buy  Protestant 
ones.  Two  noble  libraries  were  sold  for  forty 
shilHngs,  for  waste  paper.  Thus  the  reign  of 
Edward  vi.  gave  free  play  to  that  ascetic  and 
intolerable  hatred  of  letters  which  had  now  and 
again  made  its  voice  heard  under  Henry  viii. 
Oxford  was  almost  empty.  The  schools  were 
used  by  laundresses,  as  a  place  wherein  clothes 
might    conveniently    be    dried.       The    citizens 

8i 


Oxford 

encroached  on  academic  property.  Some 
schools  were  quite  destroyed,  and  the  sites 
converted  into  gardens.  Few  men  took  de- 
grees. The  college  plate  and  the  jewels  left 
by  pious  benefactors  were  stolen,  and  went  to 
the  melting-pot.  Thus  flourished  Oxford  under 
Edward  vi. 

The  reign  of  Mary  was  scarcely  more  favour- 
able to  letters.  No  one  knew  what  to  be  at  in 
religion.  In  Magdalen  no  one  could  be  found 
to  say  Mass,  the  fellows  were  turned  out,  the 
undergraduates  were  whipped — boyish  martyrs 
— and  crossed  at  the  buttery.  What  most 
pleases,  in  this  tragic  reign,  is  the  anecdote  of 
Edward  Anne  of  Corpus.  Anne,  with  the 
conceit  of  youth,  had  written  a  Latin  satire  on 
the  Mass.  He  was  therefore  sentenced  to  be 
publicly  flogged  in  the  hall  of  his  college,  and 
to  receive  one  lash  for  each  line  in  his  satire. 
Never,  surely,  was  a  poet  so  sharply  taught  the 
merit  of  brevity.  How  Edward  Anne  must 
have  regretted  that  he  had  not  knocked  off"  an 

82 


T'he  Reformation 

epigram,  a  biting  couplet,  or  a  smart  quatrain 
with  the  sting  of  the  wit  in  the  tail  ! 

Oxford  still  retains  a  memory  of  the  hideous 
crime  of  this  reign.  In  Broad  Street,  under  the 
windows  of  Balliol,  there  is  a  small  stone  cross 
in  the  pavement.  This  marks  the  place  where, 
some  years  ago,  a  great  heap  of  wooden  ashes 
was  found.  These  ashes  were  the  remains  of 
the  fire  of  October  i6th,  1555 — the  day  when 
Ridley  and  Latimer  were  burned.  ^  They  were 
brought,'  says  Wood,  '  to  a  place  over  against 
Balliol  College,  where  now  stands  a  row  of  poor 
cottages,  a  little  before  which,  under  the  town 
wall,  ran  so  clear  a  stream  that  it  gave  the  name 
of  Canditch,  Candida  fossa  ^  to  the  way  leading  by 
it.'  To  recover  the  memory  of  that  event,  let 
the  reader  fancy  himself  on  the  top  of  the  tower 
of  St.  Michael's,  that  is,  immediately  above  the 
city  wall.  No  houses  interfere  between  him  and 
the  open  country,  in  which  Balliol  stands  ;  not 
with  its  present  frontage,  but  much  farther  back. 
A  clear  stream  runs  through  the  place  where  is 

83 


Oxford 

now  Broad  Street,  and  the  road  above  is  dark 
with  a  swaying  crowd,  out  of  which  rises  the 
vapour  of  smoke  from  the  martyrs'  pile.  At 
your  feet,  on  the  top  of  Bocardo  prison  (which 
spanned  the  street  at  the  North  Gate),  Cranmer 
stands  manacled,  watching  the  fiery  death  which 
is  soon  to  purge  away  the  memory  of  his  own 
faults  and  crimes.  He,  too,  joined  that  '  noble 
army  of  martyrs'  who  fought  all,  though  they 
knew  it  not,  for  one  cause — the  freedom  of  the 
human  spirit. 

It  was  in  a  night-battle  that  they  fell,  and 
'  confused  was  the  cry  of  the  paean,'  but  they 
won  the  victory,  and  we  have  entered  into  the 
land  for  which  they  contended.  When  we  think 
of  these  martyrdoms,  can  we  wonder  that  the 
Fellows  of  Lincoln  did  not  spare  to  ring  a  merry 
peal  on  their  gaudy-day,  the  day  of  St.  Hugh, 
even  though  Mary  the  Queen  had  just  left  her 
bitter  and  weary  life  ? 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  have  to  say  that 
learning    returned   to   Oxford  on   the   rising   of 

84 


"The  Reformation 

^  that  bright  Occidental  star,  Queen  EUzabeth.' 
On  the  other  hand,  the  University  recovered 
slowly,  after  being  '  much  troubled,'  as  Wood 
says,  '  an^J  hurried  up  and  down  by  the  changes 
of  religion.'  We  get  a  gUmpse,  from  Wood,  of 
the  Fellows  of  Merton  singing  the  psalms  of 
Sternhold  and  Hopkins  round  a  fire  in  the 
College  Hall.  We  see  the  sub-warden  snatch- 
ing the  book  out  of  the  hands  of  a  junior  fellow, 
and  declaring  '  that  he  would  never  dance  after 
that  pipe.'  We  find  Oxford  so  ilHterate,  that 
she  could  not  even  provide  an  University 
preacher  !  A  country  gentleman,  Richard 
Taverner  of  Woodeaton,  would  stroll  into  St. 
Mary's,  with  his  sword  and  damask  gown, 
and  give  the  Academicians,  destitute  of  aca- 
demical advice,  a  sermon  beginning  with  these 
words  : 

'  Arriving  at  the  mount  of  St.  Mary's,  I  have  brought 
you  some  fine  bisketts  baked  in  the  Oven  of  Charitie, 
carefully  conserved  for  the  chickens  of  the  Church, 
the  sparrows  ot  the  spirit,  and  the  sweet  swallows  of 
salvation.' 

8s 


Oxford 

In  spite  of  these  evil  symptoms,  a  Greek 
oration  and  plenty  of  Latin  plays  were  ready  for 
Queen  Elizabeth  when  she  visited  Oxford  in 
1566.  The  religious  refugees,  who  had  'eaten 
mice  at  Zurich '  in  Mary's  time,  had  returned, 
and  their  influence  was  hostile  to  learning.  A 
man  who  had  lived  on  mice  for  his  faith  was 
above  Greek.  The  court  which  contained 
Sydney,  and  which  welcomed  Bruno,  was  strong 
enough  to  make  the  classics  popular.  That 
famed  Polish  Count,  Alasco,  was  '  received  with 
Latin  orations  and  disputes  (1583)  in  the  best 
mannei,'  and  only  a  scoffing  Italian,  like  Bruno, 
ventured  to  call  the  Heads  of  Houses  the 
Drowsy  heads — dormitantes,  Bruno  was  a  man 
whom  nothing  could  teach  to  speak  well  of 
people  in  authority.  Oxford  enjoyed  the  reli- 
gious peace  (not  extended  to  '  Seminarists ')  of 
EHzabeth's  and  James's  reigns,  and  did  not 
foresee  that  she  was  about  to  become  the  home 
of  the  Court  and  a  place  of  arms. 


86 


JACOBEAN    OXFORD 


CHAPTER    IV 

JACOBEAN   OXFORD 

THE  gardens  of  Wadham  College  on  a 
bright  morning  in  early  spring  are  a 
scene  in  which  the  memory  of  old 
Oxford  pleasantly  lingers,  and  is  easily  revived. 
The  great  cedars  throw  their  secular  shadow  on 
the  ancient  turf,  the  chapel  forms  a  beautiful 
background  ;  the  whole  place  is  exactly  what  it 
was  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago.  The 
stones  of  Oxford  walls,  when  they  do  not  turn 
black  and  drop  off  in  flakes,  assume  tender  tints 
of  the  palest  gold,  red,  and  orange.  Along  a 
wall,  which  looks  so  old  that  it  may  well  have 
formed  a  defence  of  the  ancient  Augustinian 
priory,  the  stars  of  the  yellow  jasmine  flower 
abundantly.  The  industrious  hosts  of  the  bees 
have  left  their  cells,  to  labour  in  this  first  morn- 

89 


Oxford 

ing  of  spring  ;  the  doves  coo,  the  thrushes  are 
noisy  in  the  trees.  All  breathes  of  the  year's 
renewal,  and  of  the  coming  April  ;  and  all  that 
gladdens  us  may  have  gladdened  some  indolent 
scholar  in  the  time  of  King  James. 

In  the  reign  of  the  first  Stuart  king  of 
England,  Oxford  became  the  town  that  we  know. 
Even  in  Elizabeth's  days,  could  we  ascend  the 
stream  of  centuries,  we  should  find  ourselves 
much  at  home  in  Oxford.  The  earliest  trust- 
worthy map,  that  of  Agas  (1578),  is  worth 
studying,  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  Oxford 
that  Elizabeth  left,  and  that  the  architects  of 
James  embellished,  giving  us  the  most  interesting 
examples  of  collegiate  buildings,  which  are  both 
stately  and  comfortable.  Let  us  enter  Oxford 
by  the  IfHey  Road,  in  the  year  1578.  We 
behold,  as  Agas  enthusiastically  writes  : 

'  A  citie  seated,  rich  in  everything, 
Girt  with  wood  and  water,  meadow,  corn,  and  hill/ 

The  way  is  not  bordered,  of  course,  by  the  long, 
straggling  streets  of  rickety  cottages,  which  now 
90 


yacobean  Oxford 

stretch  from  the  bridge  half-way  to  Cowley  and 
Iffley.  The  church,  called  by  ribalds  '  the 
boiled  rabbit,'  from  its  peculiar  shape,  lies  on 
the  right  ;  there  is  a  gate  in  the  city  wall,  on 
the  place  where  the  road  now  turns  to  Holy- 
well. At  this  time  the  walls  still  existed,  and 
ran  from  Magdalen  past  '  St.  Mary's  College, 
called  Newe,'  through  Exeter,  through  the  site 
of  Mr.  Parker's  shop,  and  all  along  the  south 
side  of  Broad  Street  to  St.  Michael's,  and 
Bocardo  Gate.  There  the  wall  cut  across  to 
the  castle.  On  the  southern  side  of  the  city,  it 
skirted  Corpus  and  Merton  Gardens,  and  was 
interrupted  by  Christ  Church.  Probably  if  it 
were  possible  for  us  to  visit  Elizabethan  Oxford, 
the  walls  and  the  five  castle  towers  would  seem 
the  most  curious  features  in  the  place.  Entering 
the  East  Gate,  Magdalen  and  Magdalen  Grammar 
School  would  be  familiar  objects.  St.  Edmund's 
Hall  would  be  in  its  present  place,  and  Queen's 
would  present  its  ancient  Gothic  front.  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  the  change  in  the  High  Street 

91 


Oxford 

which  would  be  produced  by  a  Queen's  not 
unHke  Oriel,  in  the  room  of  the  highly  classical 
edifice  of  Wren.  All  Souls  would  be  less 
remarkable  ;  at  St.  Mary's  we  should  note  the 
absence  of  the  '  scandalous  image  '  of  Our  Lady 
over  the  door.  At  Merton  the  fellows'  quad- 
rangle did  not  yet  exist,  and  a  great  wood-yard 
bordered  on  Corpus.  In  front  of  Oriel  was  an 
open  space  with  trees,  and  there  were  a  few 
scattered  buildings,  such  as  Peckwater's  Inn  (on 
the  site  of  'Peck'),  and  Canterbury  College. 
Tom  Quad  was  stately  but  incomplete.  Turn- 
ing from  St.  Mary's  past  B.  N.  C,  we  miss  the 
attics  in  Brasenose  front,  we  miss  the  imposing 
Radcliffe,  we  miss  all  the  quadrangle  of  the 
Schools,  except  the  Divinity  school,  and  we  miss 
the  Theatre.  If  we  go  down  South  Street,  past 
Ch.  Ch.  we  find  an  open  space  where  Pembroke 
stands.  Where  Wadham  is  now,  the  most 
uniform,  complete,  and  unchanged  of  all  the 
colleges,  there  are  only  the  open  pleasances,  and 
perhaps  a  few  ruins  of  the  Augustinian  priory. 
92 


yacohean  Oxford 

St.  John's  lacks  its  inner  quadrangle,  and  BalHol, 
in  place  of  its  new  buildings,  has  its  old  delight- 
fill  grove.  As  to  the  houses  of  the  town,  they 
are  not  unlike  the  tottering  and  picturesque  old 
roofs  and  gables  of  King  Street. 

To  the  Oxford  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  then, 
the  founders  and  architects  of  her  successor 
added,  chiefly,  the  Schools'  quadrangle,  with  the 
great  gate  of  the  five  orders,  a  building  beautiful, 
as  it  were,  in  its  own  despite.  They  added  a 
smaller  curiosity  of  the  same  sort,  at  Merton  ; 
they  added  Wadham,  perhaps  their  most  success- 
flil  achievement.  Their  taste  was  a  medley  of 
new  and  old  :  they  made  a  not  uninteresting 
effort  to  combine  the  exquisiteness  of  Gothic 
decoration  with  the  proportions  of  Greek  archi- 
tecture. The  tower  of  the  five  orders  reminds 
the  spectator,  in  a  manner,  of  the  style  of  Milton. 
It  is  rich  and  overloaded,  yet  its  natural  beauty 
is  not  abated  by  the  relics  out  of  the  great  trea- 
sures of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  are  built  into 
the  mass.     The  Ionic  and  Corinthian  pillars  are 

93 


Oxford 

like  the  Latinisms  of  Milton,  the  double-gilding 
which  once  covered  the  figures  and  emblems  of 
the  upper  part  of  the  tower  gave  them  the  splen- 
dour of  Miltonic  ornament.  '  When  King  James 
came  from  Woodstock  to  see  this  quadrangular 
pile,  he  commanded  the  gilt  figures  to  be 
whitened  over,'  because  they  were  so  dazzHng, 
or,  as  Wood  expresses  it,  '  so  glorious  and  splen- 
did that  none,  especially  when  the  sun  shone, 
could  behold  them.'  How  characteristic  of 
James  is  this  anecdote  !  He  was  by  no  means 
le  rot  soleil^  as  courtiers  called  Louis  xiv.,  as 
divines  called  the  pedantic  Stuart.  It  is  easy  to 
fancy  the  King  issuing  from  the  Library  of 
Bodley,  where  he  has  been  turning  over  books 
of  theology,  prosing,  and  displaying  his  learning 
for  hours.  The  rheumy,  blinking  eyes  are 
dazzled  in  the  sunlight,  and  he  peevishly  com- 
mands the  gold  work  to  be  'whitened  over.' 
Certainly  the  translators  of  the  Bible  were  but 
ill-advised  when  they  compared  his  Majesty  to 
the  rising  sun  in  all  his  glory. 
94 


yacobean  Oxford 

James  was  rather  fond  of  visiting  Oxford  and 
the  royal  residence  at  Woodstock.  We  shall 
see  that  his  Court,  the  most  dissolute,  perhaps, 
that  England  ever  tolerated,  corrupted  the  man- 
ners of  the  students.  On  one  of  his  Majesty's 
earliest  visits  he  had  a  chance  of  displaying  the 
penetration  of  w^hich  he  was  so  proud.  James 
was  always  finding  out  something  or  somebody, 
till  it  almost  seemed  as  if  people  had  discovered 
that  the  best  way  to  flatter  him  was  to  try  to 
deceive  him.  In  1604,  there  was  in  Oxford  a 
certain  Richard  Haydock,  a  Bachelor  of  Physic. 
This  Haydock  practised  his  profession  during 
the  day  like  other  mortals,  but  varied  from  the 
kindly  race  of  men  by  a  pestilent  habit  of  preach- 
ing all  night.  It  was  Haydock's  contention 
that  he  preached  unconsciously  in  his  sleep, 
when  he  would  give  out  a  text  with  the  greatest 
gravity,  and  declare  such  sacred  matters  as  were 
revealed  to  him  in  slumber,  '  his  preaching  com- 
ing by  revelation.'  Though  people  went  to 
hear  Haydock,  they  were  chiefly  influenced  by 

95 


Oxford 

curiosity.  '  His  auditory  were  willing  to  silence 
him  by  pulling,  haling,  and  pinching  him,  yet 
would  he  pertinaciously  persist  to  the  end,  and 
sleep  still.'  The  King  was  introduced  into 
Haydock's  bedroom,  heard  him  declaim,  and 
next  day  cross-examined  him  in  private.  Awed 
by  the  royal  acuteness,  Haydock  confessed  that 
he  was  a  humbug,  and  that  he  had  taken  to 
preaching  all  night  by  way  of  getting  a  little 
notoriety,  and  because  he  felt  himself  to  be  '  a 
buried  man  in  the  University.' 

That  a  man  should  hope  to  get  reputation 
by  preaching  all  night  is  itself  a  proof  that  the 
University,  under  James,  was  too  theologically 
minded.  When  has  it  been  otherwise  ?  The 
religious  strife  of  the  reigns  of  Henry  viii., 
Edward  vi.,  and  Mary,  was  not  asleep  ;  the 
troubles  of  Charles's  time  were  beginning  to 
stir.  Oxford  was  as  usual  an  epitome  of  English 
opinion.  We  see  the  struggle  of  the  wildest 
Puritanism,  of  Arminianism,  of  Pelagianism,  of 
a   dozen   '  isms,'   which   are    dead  enough,   but 

96 


yacohean  Oxford 

have  left  their  pestilent  progeny  to  disturb  a 
place  of  religion,  learning,  and  amusement.  By 
whatever  names  the  different  sects  were  called, 
men's  ideas  and  tendencies  were  divided  into 
two  easily  recognisable  classes.  Calvinism  and 
Puritanism  on  one  side,  with  the  Puritanic  haters 
of  letters  and  art,  were  opposed  to  Catholicism  in 
germ,  to  literature,  and  mundane  studies.  How 
difficult  it  is  to  take  a  side  in  this  battle,  where 
both  parties  had  one  foot  on  firm  ground,  the  other 
in  chaos,  where  freedom,  or  what  was  to  become 
freedom  of  thought,  was  allied  with  narrow  bigotry, 
where  learning  was  chained  to  superstition ! 

As  early  as  1606,  Mr.  William  Laud,  B.D., 
of  St.  John's  College,  began  to  disturb  the 
University.  The  young  man  preached  a  sermon 
which  was  thought  to  look  Romewards.  Laud 
became  suspect^  it  was  thought  a  '  scandalous ' 
thing  to  give  him  the  usual  courteous  greetings 
in  the  street  or  in  the  college  quadrangle.  From 
this  time  the  history  of  Oxford,  for  forty  years,  is 
mixed  up  with  the  history  of  Laud.  The  divi- 
G  97 


Oxford 

sions  of  Roundhead  and  of  Cavalier  have  begun. 
The  majority  of  the  undergraduates  are  on  the 
side  of  Laud  ;  and  the  Court,  the  citizens,  and 
many  of  the  elder  members  of  the  University, 
are  with  the  Puritans. 

The  Court  and  the  King,  we  have  said,  were 
fond  of  being  entertained  in  the  college  halls. 
James  went  from  libraries  to  academic  disputa- 
tions, thence  to  dinner,  and  from  dinner  to  look 
on  at  comedies  played  by  the  students.  The 
Cambridge  men  did  not  care  to  see  so  much 
royal  favour  bestowed  on  Oxford.  When  James 
visited  the  University  in  1641,  a  Cambridge  wit 
produced  a  remarkable  epigram.  For  some 
mysterious  reason  the  playful  fancies  of  the 
sister  University  have  never  been  greatly  admired 
at  Oxford,  where  the  brisk  air,  men  flatter  them- 
selves, breeds  nimbler  humours.  Here  is  part 
of  the  Cantab's  epigram  : 

'  To  Oxenford  the  King  has  gone, 

With  all  his  mighty  peers, 
That  hath  in  peace  maintained  us. 

These  five  or  six  long  years.' 

98 


yacobean  Oxford 

The  poem  maunders  on  for  half  a  dozen  Hnes, 
and  ^  loses  itself  in  the  sands,'  like  the  River 
Rhine,  without  coming  to  any  particular  point 
or  conclusion.  How  much  more  lively  is  the 
Oxford  couplet  on  the  King,  who,  being  bored 
by  some  amateur  theatricals,  twice  or  thrice 
made  as  if  he  would  leave  the  hall,  where  men 
failed  dismally  to  entertain  him. 

'  "  The  King  himself  did  offer,"—"  What,  I  pray  ?  " 
"  He  offered  twice  or  thrice — to  go  away  !  "  ' 

As  a  result  of  the  example  of  the  Court,  the 
students  began  to  wear  love-locks.  In  Eliza- 
beth's time,  when  men  wore  their  hair  '  no 
longer  than  their  ears,'  long  locks  had  been 
a  mark,  says  Wood,  of  '  swaggerers.'  Drinking 
and  gambling  were  now  very  fashionable,  under- 
graduates were  whipped  for  wearing  boots, 
while  ^  Puritans  were  many  and  troublesome,' 
and  Laud  publicly  declared  (1614)  that  ^  Presby- 
terians were  as  bad  as  Papists.'  Did  Laud, 
after  all,  think  Papists  so  very  bad  ?  In  16 17 
he   was  President  of  his  college,  St.  John's,  on 

99 


Oxford 

which  he  set  his  mark.  It  is  to  Laud  and  to 
Inigo  Jones  that  Oxford  owes  the  beautiful 
garden-front,  perhaps  the  most  lovely  thing  in 
Oxford.  From  the  gardens — where  for  so  many 
summers  the  beauty  of  England  has  rested  in 
the  shadow  of  the  chestnut-trees,  amid  the 
music  of  the  chimes,  and  in  air  heavy  with  the 
scent  of  the  acacia  flowers — from  the  gardens, 
Laud's  building  looks  rather  like  a  country- 
house  than  a  college. 

If  St.  John's  men  have  lived  in  the  University 
too  much  as  if  it  were  a  large  country-house,  if 
they  have  imitated  rather  the  Toryism  than  the 
learning  of  their  great  Archbishop,  the  blame 
is  partly  Laud's.  How  much  harm  to  study  he 
and  Waynflete  have  unwittingly  done,  and  how 
much  they  have  added  to  the  romance  of 
Oxford !  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  men 
find  it  a  weary  task  to  read  in  sight  of  the 
beauty  of  the  groves  of  Magdalen  and  of  St. 
John's.  When  Kubla  Khan  '  a  stately  pleasure- 
dome    decreed,'    he    did     not    mean    to    settle 

lOO 


yacobean  Oxford 

students  there,  and  to  ask  them  for  metaphysical 
essays,  and  for  Greek  and  Latin  prose  composi- 
tions. Kubla  Khan  would  have  found  a  palace 
to  his  desire  in  the  gardens  of  Laud,  or  where 
Cherwell,  '  meandering  with  a  mazy  motion,' 
stirs  the  green  weeds,  and  flashes  from  the  mill- 
wheel,  and  flows  to  the  Isis  through  meadows 
white  and  purple  with  fritillaries. 

'  And  here  are  gardens  bright  with  sinuous  rills, 
Where  blossoms  many  an  incense-bearing  tree  '  ; 

but  here  is  scarcely  the  proper  training-ground 
of  first-class  men  ! 

Oxford  returned  to  her  ancient  uses  in 
1625.  Soon  after  the  accession  of  Charles  i. 
the  plague  broke  out  in  London,  and  Oxford 
entertained  the  Parliament,  as  six  hundred  years 
before  she  had  received  the  Witan.  There 
seemed  something  ominous  in  all  that  Charles 
did  in  his  earlier  years — the  air,  or  men's  minds, 
was  full  of  the  presage  of  fate.  It  was  observed 
that  the  House  of  Commons  met  in  the  Divinity 

lOI 


Oxford 

School,  and  that  the  place  seemed  to  have 
infected  them  with  theological  passion.  After 
1625  there  was  never  a  Parliament  but  had  its 
committee  to  discuss  religion,  and  to  stray  into 
the  devious  places  of  divinity.  The  plague 
pursued  Charles  to  Oxford.  In  those  days,  and 
long  afterwards,  it  was  a  common  complaint 
that  the  citizens  built  rows  of  poor  cottages 
within  the  walls,  and  that  these  cottages  were 
crowded  by  dirty  and  indigent  people.  Plague 
was  bred  almost  yearly  at  Oxford,  and  Charles 
really  seems  to  have  improved  the  sanitary 
arrangements  of  the  city. 

Laud,  the  President  of  St.  John's,  became, 
by  some  intrigue.  Chancellor  of  the  University. 
He  made  Oxford  many  presents  of  Greek, 
Chinese,  Hebrew,  Latin,  and  Arabic  MSS. 
There  may  have  been — let  us  hope  there  were 
— quiet  bookworms  who  enjoyed  these  gifts, 
while  the  town  and  University  were  bubbling 
over  with  religious  feuds.  People  grumbled 
that  '  Popish  darts  were  whet  afresh  on  a  Dutch 
102 


yacobean  Oxford 

grindstone.'  A  series  of  anti-Romish  and  anti- 
Royal  sermons  and  pamphlets,  followed  as  a 
rule  by  a  series  of  recantations,  kept  men's 
minds  in  a  ferment.  The  good  that  Laud  did 
by  his  gifts — and  he  was  a  munificent  patron 
of  learning — he  destroyed  by  his  dogmatism. 
Scholars  could  not  decipher  Greek  texts  while 
they  were  torturing  biblical  ones  into  arguments 
for  and  against  the  opinions  of  the  Chancellor. 
What  is  the  true  story  about  the  gorgeous  vest- 
ments which  were  found  in  a  box  in  the  house 
of  the  President  of  St.  John's,  and  which  are 
now  preserved  in  the  library  of  that  college  ? 
Did  they  belong  to  the  last  of  the  old  Catholic 
presidents  of  what  was  Chichele's  College  of 
St.  Bernard  before  the  Reformation  ?  Were 
they,  on  the  other  hand,  the  property  of  Laud 
himself  ?  It  has  been  said  that  Laud  would  not 
have  known  how  to  wear  them.  Fancy  sees 
him  treasuring  that  bright  ecclesiastical  raiment, 
TreVXot  vafjiTroLKiXoL,  in  some  placc  of  security.  At 
night,    perhaps,    when     candles    were     lit    and 

103 


Oxford 

curtains  drawn,  and  he  was  alone,  he  may  have 
arrayed  himself  in  the  gorgeous  chasuble  before 
the  mirror,  as  Hetty  wore  her  surreptitious 
finery.  '  There  is  a  great  deal  of  human  nature 
in  man.'  If  Laud  really  strutted  in  solitude, 
draped  rather  at  random  in  these  vestments,  the 
ecclesiastical  gear  is  even  more  interesting  than 
the  thin  ivory-headed  staff  which  supported  him 
on  his  way  to  the  scaffold  ;  more  curious  than 
the  diary  in  which  he  recorded  the  events  of 
night  and  day,  of  dreaming  hours  and  waking. 
In  the  library  at  St.  John's  they  show  his  bust — 
a  tarnished,  gilded  work  of  art.  He  has  a  neat 
little  cocked-up  moustache,  not  like  a  prelate's  ; 
the  face  is  that  of  a  Bismarck  without  strength 
of  character. 

In  speaking  of  Oxford  before  the  civil  war, 
let  us  not  forget  that  true  students  and  peaceable 
men  found  a  welcome  retreat  beyond  the  din 
of  theological  factions.  Lord  Falkland's  house 
was  within  ten  miles  of  the  town.  '  In  this 
time,'  says  Clarendon,  in  his  immortal  panegyric, 

104 


yacobean  Oxford 

*  in  this  time  he  contracted  famiUarity  and 
friendship  with  the  most  poHshed  men  of  the 
University,  who  found  such  an  immenseness 
of  wit  and  such  a  sohdity  of  judgment  in  him, 
so  infinite  a  fancy,  bound  in  by  a  most  logical 
ratiocination,  such  a  vast  knowledge  that  he 
was  not  ignorant  in  anything,  yet  such  an  exces- 
sive humility  as  if  he  had  known  nothing,  that 
they  frequently  resorted  and  dwelt  with  him,  as 
in  a  college  situated  in  a  purer  air  ;  so  that  his 
house  was  a  university  in  a  less  volume,  whither 
they  came  not  so  much  for  repose  as  study ;  and 
to  examine  and  refine  those  grosser  propositions, 
which  laziness  and  consent  made  current  in 
vulgar  conversation.' 

The  signs  of  the  times  grew  darker.  In 
1636  the  King  and  Queen  visited  Oxford,  'with 
no  applause.'  In  1640  Laud  sent  the  Uni- 
versity his  last  present  of  manuscripts.  He  was 
charged  with  nrnny  offences.  He  had  repaired 
crucifixes  ;  he  had  allowed  the  '  scandalous 
image '  to  be  set  up  in  the  porch  of  St.  Mary's  ; 

105 


Oxford 

and  Alderman  Nixon,  the  Puritan  grocer,  had 
seen  a  man  bowing  to  the  scandalous  image — so 
he  declared.  In  1642  Charles  asked  for  money 
from  the  colleges,  for  the  prosecution  of  the 
war  with  the  Parliament.  The  beautiful  old 
college  plate  began  its  journey  to  the  melting- 
pot.  On  August  9th  the  scholars  armed  them- 
selves. There  were  two  bands  of  musqueteers, 
one  of  pikemen,  one  of  halberdiers.  In  the 
reign  of  Henry  iii.  the  men  had  been  on  the 
other  side.  Magdalen  bridge  was  blocked  up 
with  heaps  of  wood.  Stones,  for  the  primitive 
warfare  of  the  time,  were  transported  to  the  top 
of  Magdalen  tower.  The  stones  were  never 
thrown  at  any  foemen.  Royalists  and  Round- 
heads in  turn  occupied  the  place  ;  and  while 
grocer  Nixon  fled  before  the  Cavaliers,  he  came 
back  and  interceded  for  All  Souls  College 
(which  dealt  with  him  for  figs  and  sugar)  when 
the  Puritans  wished  to  batter  the  graven  images 
on  the  gate.  On  October  29th  the  King  came, 
after  Edgehill  fight,  the  Court  assembled,  and 
106 


yacobean  Oxford 

Oxford  was  fortified.  The  place  was  made 
impregnable  in  those  days  of  feeble  artillery. 
The  author  of  the  Gesta  Stephani  had  pointed 
out,  many  centuries  before,  that  Oxford,  if  pro- 
perly defended,  could  never  be  taken,  thanks  to 
the  network  of  streams  that  surrounds  her. 
Though  the  citizens  worked  grudgingly  and 
slowly,  the  trenches  were  at  last  completed. 
The  earthworks — a  double  line — ran  in  and  out 
of  the  interlacing  streams.  A  Parliamentary 
force  on  Headington  Hill  seems  to  have  been 
unable  to  play  on  the  city  with  artillery.  Barbed 
arrows  were  served  out  to  the  scholars,  who 
formed  a  regiment  of  more  than  six  hundred 
men.  The  Queen  held  her  little  court  in 
Merton,  in  the  Warden's  lodgings.  Clarendon 
gives  rather  a  humorous  account  of  the  discon- 
tent of  the  fine  ladies  :  '  The  town  was  full  of 
lords  (besides  those  of  the  Council),  and  of 
persons  of  the  best  quality,  with  very  many 
ladies,  who,  when  not  pleased  themselves,  kept 
others   from   being   so.'       Oxford  never   was  so 

107 


Oxford 

busy  and  so  crowded  ;  letters,  society,  war,  were 
all  confused  ;  there  were  excursions  against 
Brown  at  Abingdon,  and  alarms  from  Fairfax  on 
Headington  Hill.  The  siege,  from  May  22nd 
to  June  5  th,  was  almost  a  farce.  The  Parlia- 
mentary generals  'fought  with  perspective  glasses.' 
Neither  Cromwell  at  Wytham,  nor  Brown  at 
Wolvercot,  pushed  matters  too  hard.  When 
two  Puritan  regiments  advanced  on  Hinksey, 
Mr.  Smyth  blazed  away  at  them  from  his  house. 
As  in  Zululand,  any  building  made  a  respectable 
fort,  when  cannon-balls  had  so  little  penetrative 
power,  or  when  artillery  was  not  at  the  front. 
Oxford  was  surrendered,  with  other  places  of 
arms,  after  Naseby,  and — Presbyterians  became 
heads  of  colleges  ! 


108 


SOME  SCHOLARS  OF  THE 
RESTORATION 


CHAPTER    V 

SOME  SCHOLARS  OF  THE  RESTORATION 

IN  Merton  Chapel  a  little  mural  tablet  bears 
the  crest,  the  name,  and  the  dates  of  the 
birth  and  death,  of  Antony  Wood.  He 
has  been  our  guide  in  these  sketches  of  Oxford 
life,  as  he  must  be  the  guide  of  the  gravest  and 
most  exact  historians.  No  one  who  cares  for 
the  past  of  the  University  should  think  v^^ithout 
pity  and  friendliness  of  this  lonely  scholar,  who 
in  his  lifetime  was  unpitied  and  unbefriended. 
We  have  reached  the  period  in  which  he  lived 
and  died,  in  the  midst  of  changes  of  Church  and 
State,  and  surrounded  by  more  worldly  scholars, 
whose  letters  remain  to  testify  that,  in  the  reign 
of  the  Second  Charles,  Oxford  was  modern 
Oxford.  In  the  epistles  of  Humphrey  Prideaux, 
student    of  Christ    Church,    we    recognise    the 


Oxford 

foibles  of  the  modern  University,  the  love  of 
gossip,  the  internecine  criticism,  the  greatness  of 
little  men  whom  rien  ne  pent  flair e, 

Antony  Wood  was  a  scholar  of  a  different 
sort,  of  a  sort  that  has  never  been  very  common 
in  Oxford.  He  was  a  perfect  dungeon  of  books ; 
but  he  wrote  as  well  as  read,  which  has  never 
been  a  usual  practice  in  his  University.  Wood 
was  born  in  1632,  in  one  of  the  old  houses 
opposite  Merton,  perhaps  in  the  curious  ancient 
hall  which  has  been  called  Beham,  Bream,  and 
Bohemice  Aula^  by  various  corruptions  of  the 
original  spelling.  As  a  boy.  Wood  must  have 
seen  the  siege  of  Oxford,  which  he  describes  not 
without  humour.  As  a  young  man,  he  watched 
the  religious  revolution  which  introduced  Presby- 
terian Heads  of  Houses,  and  sent  Puritanical 
captains  of  horse,  like  Captain  James  Wadsworth, 
to  hunt  for  '  Papistical  rehques '  and  '  massing 
stuffs '  among  the  property  of  the  President  of 
C.  C.  C.  and  the  Dean  of  Ch.  Ch.  (1646- 
1648).      In  1650  he  saw  the  Chancellorship  of 


1 12 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

Oliver  Cromwell  ;  in  1659  he  welcomed  the 
Restoration,  and  rejoiced  that  '  the  King  had 
come  to  his  own  again.'  The  tastes  of  an  anti- 
quary combined,  with  the  natural  reaction  against 
Puritanism,  to  make  Antony  Wood  a  High 
Churchman,  and  not  averse  to  Rome,  while  he 
had  sufficient  breadth  of  mind  to  admire  Thomas 
Hobbes,  the  patriarch  of  English  learning.  But 
Wood  had  little  room  in  his  heart  or  mind  for 
any  learning  save  that  connected  with  the  Uni- 
versity. Oxford,  the  city,  and  the  colleges,  the 
remains  of  the  old  religious  art,  the  customs,  the 
dresses — these  things  he  adored  with  a  loverlike 
devotion,  which  was  utterly  unrewarded.  He 
owed  no  office  to  the  University,  and  he  was 
even  expelled  (1693)  for  having  written  sharply 
against  Clarendon.  This  did  not  abate  his  zeal, 
nor  prevent  him  from  passing  all  his  days,  and 
much  of  his  nights,  in  the  study  and  compilation 
of  University  history. 

The  author  of  Wood's  biography  has  left  a 
picture    of  his   sombre   and   laborious   old   age. 


Oxford 

He  rose  at  four  o'clock  every  morning.  He 
scarcely  tasted  food  till  supper-time.  At  the 
hour  of  the  college  dinner  he  visited  the  book- 
sellers' shops,  where  he  was  sure  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  the  gossip  of  dons,  young  and  old. 
After  supper  he  would  smoke  his  pipe  and  drink 
his  pot  of  ale  in  a  tavern.  It  was  while  he  took 
this  modest  refreshment,  before  old  age  came 
upon  him,  that  Antony  once  fell  in,  and  fell  out, 
with  Dick  Peers.  This  Dick  was  one  of  the 
men  employed  by  Dr.  Fell,  the  Dean  of  Ch. 
Ch.,  to  translate  Wood's  History  and  Anti- 
quities of  the  University  of  Oxford  into  Latin. 
The  translation  gave  rise  to  a  number  of  literary 
quarrels.  As  Dean  of  Ch.  Ch.,  Dr.  Fell  yielded 
to  the  besetting  sin  of  deans,  and  fancied  himself 
the  absolute  master  of  the  University,  if  not 
something  superior  to  mortal  kind.  An  autocrat 
of  this  sort  had  no  scruples  about  changing 
Wood's  copy  whenever  he  dijffered  from  Wood 
in  political  or  religious  opinion.  Now  Antony, 
as  we  said,  had  eyes  to  discern  the  greatness  of 
114 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

Hobbes,  whom  the  Dean  considered  no  better 
than  a  Deist  or  an  Atheist.  The  Dean  there- 
fore calmly  altered  all  that  Wood  had  written 
of  the  Philosopher  of  Malmesbury,  and  so 
maligned  Hobbes  that  the  old  man,  meeting  the 
King  in  Pall  Mall,  begged  leave  to  reply  in  his 
own  defence.  Charles  allowed  the  dispute  to 
go  on,  and  Hobbes  hit  Fell  rather  hard.  The 
Dean  retorted  with  the  famous  expression  about 
irritahile  illud  et  vanissimum  Mabnesburiense 
animal.  This  controversy  amused  Oxford,  but 
bred  bad  feeling  between  Antony  Wood  and 
Dick  Peers,  the  translator  of  his  work,  and  the 
tool  of  the  Dean  of  Ch.  Ch.  Prideaux  {Letters 
to  John  Ellis  \  Camden  Society,  1875)  describes 
the  battles  in  city  taverns  between  author  and 
translator  : 

'  I  suppose  that  you  have  heard  of  the  continuall 
feuds,  and  often  battles,  between  the  author  and  the 
translator  ;  they  had  a  skirmish  at  Sol  Hardeing  [keeper 
of  a  tavern  in  AH  Saints'  parish],  another  at  the  printeing 
house  [the  Sheldonian  theatre],  and  several  other  places.' 

From  the  record  of  these  combats,  we  learn 

115 


Oxford 

that    the    recluse    Antony    was    a    man    of   his 

hands : 

*  As  Peers  always  cometh  off  with  a  bloody  nose  or  a 
black  eye,  he  was  a  long  time  afraid  to  goe  annywhere 
where  he  might  chance  to  meet  his  too  powerful  adver- 
sary, for  fear  of  another  drubbing,  till  he  was  pro-proctor, 
and  now  Woods  [sic)  is  as  much  afraid  to  meet  him, 
least  he  should  exercise  his  authority  upon  him.  And 
although  he  be  a  good  bowzeing  blad,  yet  it  hath  been 
observed  that  never  since  his  adversary  hath  been  in 
office  hath  he  dared  to  be  out  after  nine,  least  he  should 
meet  him  and  exact  the  rigor  of  the  statute  upon  him.' 

The  statute  required  all  scholars  to  be  in 
their  rooms  before  Tom  had  ceased  ringing.  It 
was,  perhaps,  too  rash  to  say  that  the  Oxford  of 
the  Restoration  was  already  modern  Oxford. 
The  manners  of  the  students  were,  so  to  speak, 
more  accentuated.  However  much  the  lecturer 
in  Idolology  may  dislike  the  method  and  person 
of  the  Reader  in  the  Mandingo  language,  these 
two  learned  men  do  not  box  in  taverns,  nor  take 
off  their  coats  if  they  meet  each  other  at  the 
Clarendon  Press.  People  are  careful  not  to 
pitch  into  each  other  in  that  way,  though  the 

ii6 


o 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

temper  which  confounds  opponents  for  their 
theory  of  irregular  verbs  is  not  at  all  abated. 
As  Wood  grew  in  years  he  did  not  increase  in 
honours.  '  He  was  a  mere  scholar/  and  conse- 
quently might  expect  from  the  greater  number 
of  men  disrespect.  When  he  was  but  sixty-four, 
he  looked  eighty  at  least.  His  dress  was  not 
elegant,  '  cleanliness  being  his  chief  object.'  He 
rarely  left  his  rooms,  that  were  papered  with 
MSS.,  and  where  every  table  and  chair  had  its 
load  of  books  and  yellow  parchments  from  the 
College  muniment  rooms.  When  strangers  came 
to  Oxford  with  letters  of  recommendation,  the 
recluse  would  leave  his  study,  and  gladly  lead 
them  about  the  town,  through  Logic  Lane  to 
Queen's,  which  had  not  then  the  sublimely 
classical  front,  built  by  Hawksmoor,  '  but  sug- 
gested by  Sir  Christopher  Wren.'  It  is  worthy 
of  his  genius.  Wood  died  in  1695,  'forgiving 
every  one.'  He  could  well  afford  to  do  so.  In 
his  Athe?ice  Oxonienses  he  had  written  the  lives 
of  all  his  enemies. 

117 


Oxford 

Wood,  *  being  a  mere  scholar,'  could,  of 
course,  expect  nothing  but  disrespect  in  a  place 
like  Oxford.  His  younger  contemporary,  Hum- 
phrey Prideaux,  was,  in  the  Oxford  manner,  a 
man  of  the  world.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Cornish 
squire,  was  educated  at  Westminster  under  Busby 
(that  awful  pedagogue,  whose  birch  seems  so 
near  a  memory),  got  a  studentship  at  Christ 
Church  in  1668,  and  took  his  B.A.  degree  in 
1672.  Here  it  may  be  observed  that  men  went 
up  quite  as  late  in  life  then  as  they  do  now,  for 
Prideaux  was  twenty-four  years  old  when  he 
took  his  degree.  Fell  was  Dean  of  Christ 
Church,  and  was  showing  laudable  zeal  in  work- 
ing the  University  Press.  What  a  pity  it  is  that 
the  University  Press  of  to-day  has  become  a 
trading  concern,  a  shop  for  twopenny  manuals 
and  penny  primers !  It  is  scarcely  proper  that 
the  University  should  at  once  organise  examina- 
tions and  sell  the  manuals  which  contain  the 
answers  to  the  questions  most  likely  to  be  set. 
To  return  to  Fell  j  he  made  Prideaux  edit 
118 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

Lucius  Florus,  and  publish  the  Marinora  Oxoni- 
ensia^  which  came  out  1676.  We  must  not 
suppose,  however,  that  Prideaux  was  an  enthu- 
siastic archaeologist.  He  did  the  Marmora 
because  the  Dean  commanded  it,  and  because 
educated  people  were  at  that  period  not  unin- 
terested in  Greek  art.  At  the  present  hour  one 
may  live  a  lifetime  in  Oxford  and  only  learn,  by 
the  accident  of  examining  passmen  in  the  Arundel 
Room,  that  the  University  possesses  any  marbles. 
In  the  walls  of  the  Arundel  Room  (on  the  ground- 
floor  in  the  Schools'  quadrangle)  these  touching 
remains  of  Hellas  are  interred.  There  are  the 
funereal  stelae,  with  their  quiet  expression  of 
sorrow,  of  hope,  of  resignation.  The  young 
man,  on  his  tombstone,  is  represented  in  the  act 
of  rising  and  taking  the  hand  of  a  friend.  He 
is  bound  on  his  latest  journey. 

'  He  goeth  forth  unto  the  unknown  land, 

Where  wife  nor  child  may  follow  ;   thus  far  tell 
The  lingering  clasp  of  hand  in  faithful  hand, 
And  that  brief  carven  legend,  Friend^  farewell. 

119 


Oxford 

O  pregnant  sign,  profound  simplicity  ! 

All  passionate  pain  and  fierce  remonstrating 
Being  wholly  purged,  leave  this  mere  memory, 

Deep  but  not  harsh,  a  sad  and  sacred  thing.' ^ 

The  lady  chooses  from  a  coffer  a  trinket,  or 
a  ribbon.  It  is  her  last  toilette  she  is  making, 
with  no  fear  and  no  regret.  Again,  the  long- 
severed  souls  are  meeting  with  delight  in  the 
home  of  the  just  made  perfect. 

Even  in  the  Schools  these  scraps  of  Greek 
lapidary's  work  seem  beautiful  to  us,  in  their 
sober  and  cheerful  acceptance  of  life  and  death. 
We  hope,  in  Oxford,  that  the  study  of  ancient 
art,  as  well  as  of  ancient  literature,  may  soon  be 
made  possible.  These  tangible  relics  of  the 
past  bring  us  very  near  to  the  heart  and  the  life 
of  Greece,  and  waken  a  kindly  enthusiasm  in 
every  one  who  approaches  them.  In  Humphrey 
Prideaux's  letters  there  is  not  a  trace  of  any 
such  feeling.  He  does  his  business,  but  it  is 
hack-work.  In  this  he  differs  from  the  modern 
student,  but   in   his   caustic   description   of  the 

^  Poems  by  Ernest  Myers.     London,  1877. 
120 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

rude  and  witless  society  of  the  place  he  is 
modern  enough.  In  his  letters  to  his  friend, 
John  Ellis,  of  the  State  Paper  Office,  it  is  plain 
that  Prideaux  wants  to  get  preferment.  His 
taste  and  his  ambition  alike  made  him  detest  the 
heavy,  beer-drinking  doctors,  the  fast  '  All  Souls 
gentlemen,'  and  the  fossils  of  stupidity  who  are 
always  plentifully  imbedded  in  the  soil  of  Uni- 
versity life.  Fellowships  were  then  sold,  at 
Magdalen  and  New,  when  they  were  not  given 
by  favour.  Prideaux  grumbles  Quly  28th, 
1674)  at  the  laxness  of  the  Commissioners,  who 
should  have  exposed  this  abuse  :  '  In  town,  one 
of  their  inquirys  is  whether  any  of  the  scholars 
weare  pantaloons  or  periwigues,  or  keep  dogs.' 
The  great  dispute  about  dogs,  which  raged  at  a 
later  date  in  University  College,  had  already 
begun  to  disturb  dons  and  undergraduates.  The 
choice  language  of  Oxford  contempt  was  even 
then  extant,  and  Prideaux,  like  Grandison  in 
Daniel  Deronda^  spoke  curtly  of  the  people 
whom  he  did  not  like  as  *  brutes.'      '  Pembroke 


121 


Oxford 

— the  fittest  colledge  in  the  town  for  brutes.' 
The  University  did  not  encourage  certain  'players' 
who  had  paid  the  place  a  visit,  and  the  players, 
in  revenge,  had  gone  about  the  town  at  night 
and  broken  the  windows. 

When  the  journey  from  London  to  Oxford 
is  so  easily  performed,  it  is  amusing  to  read  of 
Prideaux  s  miserable  adventures,  in  the  diligence, 
between  a  lady  of  easy  manners,  a  '  pitiful  rogue,' 
and  two  undergraduates  who  '  sordidly  affected 
debauchery.' 

'This  ill  company  made  me  very  miserable  all  the 
way.  Only  once  I  could  not  but  heartily  laugh  to  see 
Fincher  be  sturdyly  belaboured  by  five  or  six  carmen 
with  whips  and  prong  staves  for  provoking  them  with 
some  of  his  extravagant  frolics.' 

The  '  violent  affection  to  vice'  in  the  University, 
or  in  the  country,  was,  of  course,  the  reaction 
against  the  godhness  of  Puritan  captains  of  horse. 
Another  form  of  the  reaction  is  discernible  in 
the  revived  High  Church  sentiments  of  Prideaux, 
Wood,  and  most  of  the  students  of  the  time, 

122 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

The  manners  of  the  undergraduates  were 
not  much  better  than  those  of  the  pot-house- 
haunting  seniors.  Dr.  Good,  the  Master  of 
BalHol,  '  a  good  old  toast,'  had  much  trouble 
with  his  students. 

'There  is,  over  against  Balliol  College,  a  dingy, 
horrid,  scandalous  ale-house,  fit  for  none  but  draymen 
and  tinkers,  and  such  as,  by  going  there,  have  made 
themselves  equally  scandalous.  Here  the  Balliol  men 
continually,  and  by  perpetuall  bubbing,  add  art  to  their 
natural  stupidity,  to  make  themselves  perfect  sots.' 

The  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  inferior  colleges, 
alas  !  have  put  about  many  things,  in  these  latter 
days,  to  the  discredit  of  the  Balliol  men,  but  not 
even  Humphrey  Prideaux  would,  out  of  all  his 
stock  of  epithets,  choose  '  sottish  '  and  '  stupid.' 
In  these  old  times,  however.  Dr.  Good  had  to 
call  the  men  together,  and — 

'  Inform  them  of  the  mischiefs  of  that  hellish  liquor 
called  ale  ;  but  one  of  them,  not  so  tamely  to  be  preached 
out  of  his  beloved  liquor,  made  answer  that  the  Vice- 
Chancelour's  men  drank  ale  at  the  "  Split  Crow,"  and 
why  should  not  they  too  ?  ' 

123 


Oxford 

On  this,  old  Dr.  Good  posted  off  to  the  Vice- 
Chancellor,  who,  '  being  a  lover  of  old  ale ' 
himself,  returned  a  short  answer  to  the  head  of 
Balliol.  The  old  man  went  back  to  his  college, 
and  informed  his  fellows,  '  that  he  was  assured 
there  were  no  hurt  in  ale,  so  that  now  they  may 
be  sots  by  authority.'  Christ  Church  men  were 
not  more  sober.  David  Whitford,  who  had 
been  the  tutor  of  Shirley  the  poet,  was  found 
lying  dead  in  his  bed  :  '  he  had  been  going  to 
take  a  dram  for  refreshment,  but  death  came 
between  the  cup  and  the  Hps,  and  this  is  the 
end  of  Davy.'  Prideaux  records,  in  the  same 
feeling  style,  that  smallpox  carried  off  many 
of  the  undergraduates,  '  besides  my  brother,' 
a  student  at  Corpus. 

The  University  Press  supplied  Prideaux  with 
gossip.  They  printed  'a  book  against  Hobs,' 
written  by  Clarendon.  Hobbes  was  the  heresi- 
arch  of  the  time,  and  when  an  unhappy  fellow 
of  Merton  hanged  himself,  the  doctrines  of 
Hobbes  were  said  to  have  prompted  him  to  the 

124 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

deed.  To  return  to  the  Press.  ^  Our  Christmas 
book  will  be  Cornelius  Nepos.  .  .  .  Our 
marbles  are  now  printing.'  Prideaux,  as  has 
been  said,  took  no  interest  in  his  own  work. 

'  I  coat  (quote)  a  multitude  of  authors  ;  if  people 
think  the  better  of  me  for  that,  I  will  think  the  worse 
of  them  for  their  judgement.  It  beeing  soe  easyly  a  thinge 
to  make  this  specious  show,  he  must  be  a  fool  that  can- 
not gain  whatsoever  repute  is  to  be  gotten  by  it.  If 
people  will  admire  him  for  this,  they  may  ;  I  shall 
admire  such  for  nothing  else  but  their  good  indexs.  As 
long  as  books  have  these,  on  what  subject  may  we  not 
coat  as  many  others  as  we  please,  and  never  have  read 
one  of  them  .? ' 

It  is  not  easy  to  gather  from  this  confession 
whether  Prideaux  had  or  had  not  read  the  books 
he  '  coated.'  It  is  certain  that  Dean  Aldrich 
(and  here  again  we  recognise  the  eternal  criti- 
cism of  modern  Oxford)  held  a  poor  opinion 
of  Humphrey  Prideaux.  Aldrich  said  Prideaux 
was  '  incorrect,'  '  muddy-headed,'  '  he  would 
do  Httle  or  nothing  besides  heaping  up  notes '  ; 
'as  for  MSS.  he  would  not  trouble  himself  about 

125 


Oxford 

any,  but  rest  wholly  upon  what  had  been  done 
to  his  hands  by  former  editors.'  This  habit 
of  carping,  this  trick  of  collecting  notes,  this 
inability  to  put  a  work  through,  this  dawdling 
erudition,  this  horror  of  manuscripts,  every 
Oxford  man  knows  them,  and  feels  those 
temptations  which  seem  to  be  in  the  air. 
Oxford  is  a  discouraging  place.  College  drud- 
gery absorbs  the  hours  of  students  in  proportion 
to  their  conscientiousness.  They  have  only  the 
waste  odds-and-ends  of  time  for  their  own 
labours.  They  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  criti- 
cism. They  collect  notes,  they  wait,  they 
dream  ;  their  youth  goes  by,  and  the  night 
comes  when  no  man  can  work.  The  more 
praise  to  the  tutors  and  lecturers  who  decipher 
the  records  of  Assyria,  or  patiently  collate  the 
manuscripts  of  the  Iliad^  who  not  only  teach 
what  is  already  known,  but  add  to  the  stock 
of  knowledge,  and  advance  the  boundaries  of 
scholarship  and  science. 

One  lesson  may  be  learned  from.  Prideaux's 

126 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

cynical  letters,  which  is  still  worth  the  attention 
of  every  young  Oxford  student  who  is  conscious 
of  ambition,  of  power,  and  of  real  interest  in 
letters.  He  can  best  serve  his  University  by 
coming  out  of  her,  by  declining  college  work, 
and  by  devoting  himself  to  original  study  in 
some  less  exhausted  air,  in  some  less  critical 
society. 

Among  the  aversions  of  Humphrey  Prideaux 
were  the  '  gentlemen  of  All  Souls.'  They 
certainly  showed  extraordinary  impudence  when 
they  secretly  employed  the  University  Press  to 
print  off  copies  of  Marc  Antonio's  engravings  after 
Giuho  Romano's  drawings.  It  chanced  that  Fell 
visited  the  press  rather  late  one  evening,  and 
found  '  his  press  working  at  such  an  imploy- 
ment.  The  prints  and  plates  he  hath  seased, 
and  threatened  the  owners  of  them  with  expul- 
sion.' '  All  Souls,'  adds  Prideaux,  '  is  a  scan- 
dalous place.'  Yet  All  Souls  was  the  college 
of  young  Mr.  Guise,  an  Arabic  scholar,  '  the 
greatest  miracle  in  the  knowledge  of  that  I  ever 

127 


Oxford 

heard  of.'  Guise  died  of  smallpox  while  still 
very  young. 

Thus  Prideaux  prattles  on,  about  Admiral 
Van  Tromp,  *  a  drunken  greazy  Dutchman,' 
whom  Speed,  of  St.  John's,  conquered  in  booz- 
ing ;  of  the  disputes  about  races  in  Port 
Meadow  ;  of  the  breaking  into  the  Mermaid 
Tavern.  '  We  Christ  Church  men  bear  the 
blame  of  it,  our  ticks,  as  the  noise  of  the  town 
will  have  it,  amounting  to  ^1500.'  Thus 
Christ  Church  had  little  cause  to  throw  the  first 
stone  at  Balliol.  Prideaux  shows  little  interest 
in  letters,  little  in  the  press,  though  he  lived  in 
palmy  days  of  printing,  in  the  time  of  the 
Elzevirs  ;  none  at  all  in  the  educational  work 
of  the  place.  He  sneers  at  the  Puritans,  and  at 
the  controversy  on  '  The  Foundations  of  Hell 
Torments  shaken  and  removed.'  He  admits 
that  Locke  '  is  a  man  of  very  good  converse,' 
but  is  chiefly  concerned  to  spy  out  the  move- 
ments of  the  philosopher,  suspected  of  sedition, 
and  to  report  them  to  Ellis  in  town.     About 

128 


Some  Scholars  of  the  Restoration 

the  new  buildings,  as  of  the  beautiful  western 
gateway,  where  Great  Tom  is  hung,  the  work 
of  Wren,  Prideaux  says  Httle  ;  St.  Mary's  was 
suffering  restoration,  and  '  the  old  men,'  includ- 
ing Wood,  we  may  believe,  '  exceedingly  ex- 
claim against  it.'  That  is  the  way  of  Oxford, 
a  college  is  constantly  rebuilding  amid  the 
protests  of  the  rest  of  the  University.  There  is 
no  question  more  common,  or  less  agreeable 
than  this,  'What  are  you  doing  to  your  tower  ? ' 
or  '  What  are  you  doing  to  your  hall,  Hbrary,  or 
chapel  ? '  No  one  ever  knows  ;  but  we  are 
always  doing  something,  and  working  men  for 
ever  sit,  and  drink  beer,  on  the  venerable  roofs. 

Long  intercourse  with  Prideaux's  letters, 
and  mournful  memories  of  Oxford  new  build- 
ings, tempt  a  writer  to  imitate  Prideaux's  spirit. 
Let  us  shut  up  his  book,  where  he  leaves 
Oxford,  in  1686,  to  become  rector  of  Saham- 
Toney,  in  Norfolk,  and  marry  a  wife,  though, 
says  he,  '  I  little  thought  I  should  ever  come 
to  this.' 

I  129 


HIGH    TORY    OXFORD 


CHAPTER    VI 
HIGH  TORY  OXFORD 

THE  name  of  her  late  Majesty  Queen 
Anne  has  for  some  Uttle  time  been  a 
kind  of  party  watch-word.  Many 
harmless  people  have  an  innocent  loyalty  to  this 
lady,  make  themselves  her  knights  (as  Mary 
Antoinette  has  still  her  sworn  champions  in 
France  and  Mary  Stuart  in  Scotland),  buy  the 
plate  of  her  serene  period,  and  imitate  the  dress. 
To  many  moral  critics  in  the  press,  however, 
Queen  Anne  is  a  kind  of  abomination.  I  know 
not  how  it  is,  but  the  terms  '  Queen  Anne 
furniture  and  blue  china '  have  become  words  of 
almost  slanderous  raihng.  Any  didactic  journalist 
who  uses  them  is  certain  at  once  to  fall  heavily 
on  the  artistic  reputation  of  Mr.  Burne  Jones,  to 
rebuke  the  philosophy  of  Mr.  Pater,  and  to  hint 

133 


Oxford 

that  the  entrance-hall  of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery 
is  that  '  by-way '  with  which  Bunyan  has  made 
us  familiar.  In  the  changes  of  things  our  admira- 
tion of  the  Augustan  age  of  our  literature,  the 
age  of  Addison  and  Steele,  of  Marlborough  and 
Aldrich,  has  become  a  sort  of  reproach.  It 
may  be  that  our  modern  preachers  know  but 
little  of  that  which  they  traduce.  At  all  events, 
the  Oxford  of  Queen  Anne's  time  was  not  what 
they  call  '  un-English,'  but  highly  conservative, 
and  as  dull  and  beer-bemused  as  the  most  manly 
taste  could  wish  it  to  be. 

The  Spectator  of  the  ingenious  Sir  Richard 
Steele  gives  us  many  a  glimpse  of  non-juring 
Oxford.  The  old  fashion  of  Sanctity  (Mr. 
Addison  says,  in  the  Spectator^  No.  494)  had 
passed  away  ;  nor  were  appearances  of  Mirth 
and  Pleasure  looked  upon  as  the  Marks  of  a 
Carnal  Mind.  Yet  the  Puritan  Rule  was  not 
so  far  forgotten,  but  that  Mr.  Anthony  Hen- 
ley (a  Gentleman  of  Property)  could  remember 
how  he  had  stood  for  a  Fellowship  in  a  certain 

134 


High  Tory  Oxford 

College  whereof  a  great  Independent  Minister 
was  Governor.  As  Oxford  at  this  Moment  is 
much  vexed  in  her  Mind  about  Examinations, 
wherein,  indeed,  her  whole  Force  is  presently 
expended,  I  make  no  scruple  to  repeat  the 
account  of  Mr.  Henley's  Adventure  : 

'The  Youth,  according  to  Custom,  waited  on  the 
Governor  of  his  College,  to  be  examined.  He  was  re- 
ceived at  the  Door  by  a  Servant,  who  was  one  of  that 
gloomy  Generation  that  were  then  in  Fashion.  He  con- 
ducted him  with  great  Silence  and  Seriousness  to  a  long 
Gallery  which  was  darkened  at  Noon-day,  and  had  only 
a  single  Candle  burning  in  it.  After  a  short  stay  in  this 
melancholy  Apartment,  he  was  led  into  a  Chamber  hung 
with  black,  where  he  entertained  himself  for  some  time 
by  the  glimmering  of  a  Taper,  till  at  length  the  Head  of 
the  College  came  out  to  him  from  an  inner  Room,  with 
half  a  dozen  Night  Caps  upon  his  Head,  and  a  religious 
Horror  in  his  Countenance.  The  Young  Man  trembled  ; 
but  his  Fears  increased  when,  instead  of  being  asked  what 
progress  he  had  made  in  Learning,  he  was  ask'd  "how 
he  abounded  in  Grace  ?  "  His  Latin  and  Greek  stood 
him  in  little  stead.  He  was  to  give  an  account  only  of 
the  state  of  his  Soul — whether  he  was  of  the  Number  of 
the  Elect  ;  what  was  the  Occasion  of  his  Conversion  ; 
upon  what  Day  of  the  Month  and  Hour  of  the  Day  it 
happened  ;  how  it  was  carried  on,  and  when  completed. 


Oxford 

The  whole  Examination  was  summed  up  in  one  short 
Question,  namely,  Whether  he  was  prepared  for  Death  ? 
The  Boy,  who  had  been  bred  up  by  honest  Parents,  was 
frighted  out  of  his  wits  by  the  solemnity  of  the  Proceed- 
ing, and  by  the  last  dreadful  Interrogatory,  so  that,  upon 
making  his  Escape  out  of  this  House  of  Mourning,  he 
could  never  be  brought  a  second  Time  to  the  Examina- 
tion, as  not  being  able  to  go  through  the  Terrors  of  it.' 

By  the  year   1705,  when  Tom  Hearne,  of 

St.  Edmund's  Hall,  began  to  keep  his  diary,  the 

'  honest  folk ' — that  is,  the  High  Churchmen — 

had   the    better   of  the    Independent    Ministers. 

The  Dissenters  had  some  favour  at  Court,  but 

in    the    University  they   were    looked   upon   as 

utterly  reprobate.    From  the  Reliquice  of  Hearne 

(an   antiquarian   successor  of  Antony  Wood,  a 

bibliophile^  an  archaeologist,  and  as  honest  a  man 

as  Jacobitism  could  make  him)  let  us  quote  an 

example  of  Heaven's  wrath  against  Dissenters  : 

"■Aug.  6,  1706.  We  have  an  account  from  Whit- 
church, in  Shropshire,  that  the  Dissenters  there  having 
prepared  a  great  quantity  of  bricks  to  erect  a  spacious 
conventicle,  a  destroying  angel  came  by  night  and  spoiled 
them  all,  and  confounded  their  Babel  in  the  beginning, 
to  their  great  mortification.' 
136 


High  'Tory  Oxford 

Hearne's  common- place  books  are  an  amus- 
ing source  of  information  about  Oxford  society 
in  the  years  of  Queen  Anne,  and  of  the  Hano- 
verian usurper.  Tom  Hearne  was  a  Master  of 
Arts  of  St.  Edmund's  Hall,  and  at  one  time 
Deputy-Librarian  of  the  Bodleian.  He  lost  this 
post  because  he  would  not  take  '  the  wicked 
oaths'  required  of  him,  but  he  did  not  therefore 
leave  Oxford.  His  working  hours  were  passed 
in  preparing  editions  of  antiquarian  books,  to  be 
printed  in  very  limited  number,  on  ordinary  and 
Large  Paper.  It  was  the  joy  of  Tom's  existence 
to  see  his  editions  become  first  scarce,  then  Very 
Scarce,  while  the  price  augmented  in  proportion 
to  the  rarity.  When  he  was  not  reading  in  his 
rooms  he  was  taking  long  walks  in  the  country, 
tracing  Roman  walls  and  roads,  and  exploring 
Woodstock  Park  for  the  remains  of  '  the  laby- 
rinth,' as  he  calls  the  Maze  of  Fair  Rosamund. 
In  these  strolls  he  was  sometimes  accompanied 
by  undergraduates,  even  gentlemen  of  noble 
family,  '  which  gave  cause  to  some  to  envy  our 

137 


Oxford 

happiness.'  Hearne  was  a  social  creature,  and 
had  a  heart,  as  he  shows  by  the  entry  about  the 
death  of  his  'very  dear  friend,  Mr.  Thomas 
Cherry,  A.M.,  to  the  great  grief  of  all  that  knew 
him,  being  a  gentleman  of  great  beauty,  singulai 
modesty,  of  wonderful  good  nature,  and  most 
excellent  principles.' 

The  friends  of  Hearne  were  chiefly,  perhaps 
solely,  what  he  calls  'honest  men,'  supporters 
of  the  Stuart  family,  and  always  ready  to  drink 
his  Majesty's  (King  James')  health.  They  would 
meet  in  '  Antiquity  Hall,'  an  old  house  near 
Wadham,  and  smoke  their  honest  pipes.  They 
held  certain  of  the  opinions  of  '  the  Hebdomadal 
Meeting,'  satirised  by  Steele  in  the  Spectator 
(No.  43).  '  We  are  much  offended  at  the  Act 
for  importing  French  wines.  A  bottle  or  two 
of  good  solid  Edifying  Port,  at  honest  Georges^ 
made  a  Night  cheerful,  and  threw  off  Reserve. 
But  this  plaguy  French  Claret  will  not  only  cost 
us  more  Money  but  do  us  less  good.'  Hearne 
had  a  poor  opinion  of  '  Captain  Steele,'  and  of 
138 


High  'Tory  Oxford 

'  one  Tickle  :  this  Tickle  is  a  pretender  to 
poetry/  He  admits  that,  though  '  Queen's 
people  are  angry  at  the  Spectator^  and  the 
common-room  say  'tis  silly  dull  stuff,  men  that 
are  indifferent  commend  it  highly,  as  it  de- 
serves.' Some  other  satirist  had  a  plate  etched, 
representing  Antiquity  Hall — a  caricature  of 
Tom's  antiquarian  engravings.  It  may  be  seen 
in  Skelton's  book. 

Thanks  to  Hearne,  it  is  easy  to  reproduce 
the  common-room  gossip,  and  the  more  treason- 
able talk  of  honest  men  at  Antiquity  Hall.  The 
learned  were  much  interested,  as  they  usually 
are  at  Oxford,  in  theological  discussion.  Some 
one  proved,  by  an  ingenious  syllogism,  that  all 
men  are  to  be  saved  ;  but  Hearne  had  the 
better  of  this  Latitudinarian,  easily  demonstrating 
that  the  comfortable  argument  does  not  meet 
the  case  of  madmen,  and  of  deaf-mutes,  whom 
Tom  did  not  expect  to  meet  in  a  fiiture  state. 
The  ingenious,  though  depressing  speculations 
of    Mr.    Dodwell    were    also    discussed  :     '  He 

139 


Oxford 

makes  the  air  the  receptacle  of  all  souls,  good 
and  bad,  and  that  they  are  under  the  power  of 

the  D 1,  he  being  prince  of  the  air.'     '  The 

less  perfectly  good '  hang  out,  if  we  may  say  so, 
*  in  the  space    between  earth   and   the   clouds,' 
all   which    is    subtle,    and     creditable    to     Mr. 
Dodwell's     invention,    but    not     susceptible    of 
exact  demonstration.       The  whole   controversy 
is    an    interesting    specimen    of    Queen    Anne 
philosophy,  which,  with  all  respect  for  the  taste 
of  the  period,  we  need  not  wish  to  see  revived. 
The  Bishop  of  Worcester,  for  example,  '  expects 
the  end  of  the  world  about  nine  years  hence.' 
While   the   theology  of  Oxford   is   being   men- 
tioned, the  zeal  of  Dr.  Miller,  Regius  Professor 
of  Greek,  must  not  be  forgotten.     The  learned 
Professor    endeavoured    to    convert,    and    even 
'  writ  a  Letter  to  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  giving  her 
great  encomiums  (as  having  himself  been  often 
to  see  plays  acted  whilst  they  continued  here) 
upon  account  of  her  excellent  qualifications,  and 
persuading  her   to   give  over  this  loose  way  of 
140 


High  Tory  Oxford 

living,  and  betake  herself  to  such  a  kind  of  life 
as  was  more  innocent,  and  would  gain  her  more 
credit.'  The  Professor's  advice  was  wasted  on 
'  Bracegirdle  the  brown.' 

Politics  were  naturally  much  discussed  in 
these  doubtful  years,  when  the  Stuarts,  it  was 
thought,  had  still  a  chance  to  win  their  own 
again.  In  1706,  Tom  says,  'The  great  health 
now  is  "  The  Cube  of  Three,"  which  is  the 
number  27,  i,e.  the  number  of  the  protesting 
Lords.'  The  University  was  most  devoted,  as 
far  as  drinking  toasts  constitutes  loyalty.  In 
Hearne's  common-place  book  is  carefully  copied 
out  this  '  Scotch  Health  to  K.  J.'  : 

'  He  's  o'er  the  seas  and  far  awa*. 
He  's  o'er  the  seas  and  far  awa'  ; 
Altho'  his  back  be  at  the  wa' 
We  '11  drink  his  health  that 's  far  awa\* 

The  words  live,  and  ring  strangely  out  of  that 
dusty  past.  The  song  survives  the  throne,  and 
sounds  pathetically,  somehow,  as  one  has  heard 
it  chanted,  in  days  as  dead  as  the  year  171 1,  at 

141 


Oxford 

suppers  that  seem  as  ancient  almost  as  the  festi- 
vities of  Thomas  Hearne.  It  is  not  unpleasant 
to  remember  that  the  people  who  sang  could 
also  fight,  and  spilt  their  blood  as  well  as  their 
'  edifying  port.'  If  the  Southern  '  honest  men ' 
had  possessed  hearts  for  anything  but  tippling, 
the  history  of  England  would  have  been 
diflFerent. 

When  '  the  allyes  and  the  French  fought  a 
bloudy  battle  near  Mons '  (1709,  '  Malplaquet '), 
the  Oxford  honest  men,  like  Colonel  Henry 
Esmond,  thought  '  there  was  not  any  the  least 
reason  of  bragging.'  The  young  King  of 
England,  under  the  character  of  the  Chevalier 
St.  George,  '  shewed  abundance  of  undaunted 
courage  and  resolution,  led  up  his  troups  with 
unspeakable  bravery,  appeared  in  the  utmost 
dangers,  and  at  last  was  wounded.'  Marl- 
borough's victories  were  sneered  at,  his  new 
palace  of  Blenheim  was  said  to  be  not  only 
ill-built,  but  haunted  by  signs  of  evil  omen. 

It  was    not    always    safe    to   say  what    one 

142 


High  Tory  Oxford 

thought  about  poHtics  at  Oxford.  One  Mr.  A. 
going  to  one  Mr.  Tonson,  a  barber,  put  the 
barber  and  his  wife  in  a  ferment  (they  being 
rascally  Whigs)  by  maintaining  that  the  heredi- 
tary right  was  in  the  P.  of  W.  Tonson  laid 
information  against  the  gentleman  ;  '  which  may 
be  a  warning  to  honest  men  not  to  enter  into 
topicks  of  this  nature  with  barbers.'  One  would 
not  willingly,  even  now,  discuss  the  foreign 
policy  of  her  Majesty's  Ministers  with  the 
person  who  shaves  one.  There  are  opportuni- 
ties and  temptations  to  which  no  decent  person 
should  be  wantonly  exposed.  The  bad  effect 
of  Whiggery  on  the  temper  was  evident  in  this, 
that  '  the  Mohocks  are  all  of  the  Whiggish 
gang,  and  indeed  all  Whigs  are  looked  upon  as 
such  Mohocks,  their  principles  and  doctrines 
leading  thus  to  all  manner  of  barbarity  and 
inhumanity.'  So  true  is  it  that  Conservatives 
are  all  lovers  of  peace  and  quiet,  that  (May  29th, 
17 1 5)  'last  night  a  good  part  of  the  Presby- 
terian   meeting-house     in    Oxford    was     pulled 


Oxford 

down.  The  people  ran  up  and  down  the 
streets,  crying,  King  James  the  Third!  The 
true  king !  No  Usurper,  In  the  evening 
they  pulled  a  good  part  of  the  Quakers'  and 
Anabaptists'  meeting-houses  down.  The  heads 
of  houses  have  represented  that  it  was  begun 
by  the  Whiggs.'  Probably  the  heads  of  houses 
reasoned  on  a  priori  principles  when  they 
arrived  at  this  remarkable  conclusion. 

In  consequence  of  the  honesty,  frankness, 
and  consistency  of  his  opinions,  Mr.  Hearne 
ran  his  head  in  danger  when  King  George 
came  to  the  throne,  which  has  ever  since  been 
happily  settled  in  the  possession  of  the  Hano- 
verian Hne.  A  Mr.  Urry,  a  Non-juror,  had  to 
warn  him,  saying,  '  Do  you  not  know  that  they 
have  a  mind  to  hang  you  if  they  can,  and  that 
you  have  many  enemies  who  are  very  ready  to 
do  it  ? '  In  spite  of  this,  Hearne,  in  his  diaries, 
still  calls  George  i.  the  Duke  of  Brunswick, 
and  the  Whigs,  *  that  fanatical  crew.'  John, 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  he  styles  '  that  villain  the 

144 


High  T'ory  Oxford 

Duke.'  We  have  had  enough,  perhaps,  of 
Oxford  pohtics,  which  were  not  much  more 
prejudiced  in  the  days  of  the  Duke  than  in 
those  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  Hearne's  allusions  to 
the  contemporary  state  of  buildings  and  of 
college  manners  are  often  rather  instructive.  In 
All  Souls  the  Whigs  had  a  feast  on  the  day  of 
King  Charles's  martyrdom.  They  had  a  dinner 
dressed  of  woodcock,  '  whose  heads  they  cut 
off,  in  contempt  of  the  memory  of  the  blessed 
martyr.'  These  men  were  '  low  Churchmen, 
more  shame  to  them.'  The  All  Souls  men  had 
already  given  up  the  custom  of  wandering  about 
the  College  on  the  night  of  January  14th,  with 
sticks  and  poles,  in  quest  of  the  mallard.  That 
'  swopping '  bird,  still  justly  respected,  was 
thought,  for  many  ages,  to  linger  in  the  college 
of  which  he  is  the  protector.  But  now  all  hope 
of  recovering  him  alive  is  lost,  and  it  is  reserved 
for  the  excavator  of  the  future  to  marvel  over 
the  fossil  bones  of  the  '  swopping,  swopping 
mallard.' 

K  145 


Oxford 

As  an  example  of  the  paganism  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign — quite  a  different  thing  from  the 
'  Neo-paganism '  which  now  causes  so  much 
anxiety  to  the  moral  press-man — let  us  note 
the  affecting  instance  of  Geffery  Ammon. 
'  He  was  a  merry  companion,  and  his  conver- 
sation was  much  courted.'  Geffery  had  but 
little  sense  of  religion.  He  is  now  buried  on 
the  west  side  of  Binsey  churchyard,  near  St. 
Margaret's  well.  Geffery  selected  Binsey  for 
the  place  of  his  sepulchre,  because  he  was 
partial  to  the  spot,  having  often  shot  snipe 
there.  In  order  to  moisten  his  clay,  he  de- 
sired his  friend  Will  Gardner,  a  boatman  of 
Oxford,  who  was  accustomed  to  row  him 
down  the  river,  to  put  now  and  then  a  bottle 
of  ale  by  his  grave  when  he  came  that  way; 
an  injunction  which  was  punctually  complied 
with. 

Oxford  lost  in  Hearne's  time  many  of  her 
old  buildings.  It  is  said,  with  a  dreadful 
appearance    of  truth,    that    Oxford    is    now    to 

146 


High  Tory  Oxford 

lose  some  of  the  few  that  are  left.  Corpus  and 
Merton,  if  they  are  not  beHed,  mean  to  pull 
down  the  old  houses  opposite  Merton,  halls  and 
houses  consecrated  to  the  memory  of  Antony 
Wood,  and  to  build  lecture-rooms  a7id  houses 
for  7narried  dons  on  the  site.  The  topic,  for 
one  who  is  especially  bound  to  pray  for  Merton 
(and  who  now  does  so  with  unusual  fervour), 
is  most  painful.  A  view  of  the  '  proposed  new 
buildings,'  in  the  Exhibition  of  the  Royal 
Academy  (1879),  depresses  the  soul.  In  the 
same  spirit  Hearne  says  (March  28th,  167 1),  'It 
always  grieves  me  when  I  go  through  Queen's 
College,  to  see  the  ruins  of  the  old  chapell  next 
to  High  Street,  the  area  of  which  now  lies  open 
(the  building  being  most  of  it  pulled  down)  and 
trampled  upon  by  dogs,  etc.,  as  if  the  ground 
had  never  been  consecrated.  Nor  do  the 
Queen's  Coll.  people  take  any  care,  but  rather 
laught  at  it  when  'tis  mentioned.'  In  1722 
'  the  famous  postern-gate  called  the  Turl  Gate ' 
(a   corruption    for    Thorold   Gate)   was    '  pulled 


Oxford 

down  by  one  Dr.  Walker,  who  lived  by  it,  and 
pretended  that  it  was  a  detriment  to  his  house. 
As  long  ago  as  1705,  they  had  pulled  down  the 
building  of  Peckwater  quadrangle,  in  Ch.  Ch.' 
Queen's  also  '  pulled  down  the  old  refectory, 
which  was  on  the  west  side  of  the  old  quadrangle, 
and  was  a  fine  old  structure  that  I  used  to  admire 
much.'  It  appears  that  the  College  was  also  anxious 
to  pull  down  the  chamber  of  King  Henry  v. 
This  is  a  strange  craze  for  destruction,  that  some 
time  ago  endangered  the  beautiful  library  of 
Merton,  a  place  where  one  can  fancy  that  Chaucer 
or  Wyclif  may  have  studied.  Oxford  will  soon 
have  little  left  of  the  beauty  and  antiquity  of 
Pateys  ^^uad  in  Merton,  as  represented  in  our 
illustration.  What  the  next  generation  will 
think  of  the  multitudinous  new  buildings,  it  is 
not  hard  to  conjecture.  Imitative  experiments, 
without  style  or  fancy  in  structure  or  decoration, 
and  often  more  than  medievally  uncomfortable, 
they  will  seem  but  evidences  of  Oxford's  love  of 
destruction.  People  of  Hearne's  way  of  thinking, 
148 


High  Tory  Oxford 

people  who  respect  antiquity,  protest  in  vain, 
and,  like  Hearne,  must  be  content  sadly  to  enjoy 
what  is  left  of  grace  and  dignity.  He  died 
before  Oxford  had  quite  become  the  Oxford  of 
Gibbon's  autobiography. 


149 


GEORGIAN    OXFORD 


CHAPTER    VII 

GEORGIAN  OXFORD 

OXFORD  has  usually  been  described  either 
by  her  lovers  or  her  malcontents.  She 
has  suffered  the  extremes  of  filial  ingrati- 
tude and  affection.  There  is  something  in  the 
place  that  makes  all  her  children  either  adore 
or  detest  her  ;  and  it  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  pick 
out  the  truth  concerning  her  past  social  condition 
from  the  satires  and  the  encomiums.  Nor  is  it 
easy  to  say  what  qualities  in  Oxford,  and  what 
answering  characteristics  in  any  of  her  sons,  will 
beget  the  favourable  or  the  unfavourable  verdict. 
Gibbon,  one  might  have  thought,  saw  the  sunny, 
and  Johnson  the  shady,  side  of  the  University. 
With  youth,  and  wealth,  and  liberty,  with  a  set 
of  three  beautiful  rooms  in  that  ^  stately  pile,  the 
new  building  of  Magdalen  College,'  Gibbon  found 

^S3 


Oxford 

nothing  in  Oxford  to  please  him — nothing  to  ad- 
mire, nothing  to  love.  From  his  poor  and  lofty 
rooms  in  Pembroke  Gate-tower  the  hypochon- 
driac Johnson — rugged,  anxious,  and  conscious 
of  his  great  unemployed  power — looked  down  on 
a  much  more  pleasant  Oxford,  on  a  city  and  on 
schools  that  he  never  ceased  to  regard  with  affec- 
tion. This  contrast  is  found  in  the  opinions  of  our 
contemporaries.  One  man  will  pass  his  time 
in  sneering  at  his  tutors  and  his  companions,  in 
turning  listlessly  from  study  to  study,  in  following 
false  tendencies,  and  picking  up  scraps  of  know- 
ledge which  he  despises,  and  in  later  life  he  will 
detest  his  University.  There  are  wiser  and  more 
successful  students,  who  yet  bear  away  a  grudge 
against  the  stately  mother  of  us  all,  that  so  easily 
can  disregard  our  petty  spleens  and  ungrateful 
rancour.  Mr.  Lowe's  most  bitter  congratulatory 
addresses  to  the  '  happy  Civil  Engineers,'  and  his 
unkindest  cuts  at  ancient  history,  and  at  the  old 
philosophies  which  '  on  Argive  heights  divinely 
sung,'  move  her  not  at  all.  Meanwhile,  the 
154 


Georgian  Oxford 

majority  of  men  are  more  kindly  compact,  and 
have  more  natural  affections,  and  on  them  the 
memory  of  their  earliest  friendships,  and  of  that 
beautiful  environment  which  Oxford  gave  to  their 
years  of  youth,  is  not  wholly  wasted. 

There  are  more  Johnsons,  happily,  in  this 
matter,  than  Gibbons.  There  is  little  need  to 
repeat  the  familiar  story  of  Johnson's  life  at 
Pembroke.  He  went  up  in  the  October  term 
of  1728,  being  then  nineteen  years  of  age, 
and  already  full  of  that  wide  and  miscellaneous 
classical  reading  which  the  Oxford  course,  then 
as  now,  somewhat  discouraged.  '  His  figure  and 
manner  appeared  strange '  to  the  company  in 
which  he  found  himself;  and  when  he  broke 
silence  it  was  with  a  quotation  from  Macrobius. 
To  his  tutor's  lectures,  as  a  later  poet  says,  '  with 
freshman  zeal  he  went '  ;  but  his  zeal  did  not 
last  out  the  discovery  that  the  tutor  was  'a  heavy 
man,'  and  the  fact  that  there  was  '  sliding  on 
Christ  Church  Meadow.'  Have  any  of  the 
artists  who  repeat,  with  perseverance,  the  most 


Oxford 

famous  scenes  in  the  Doctor's  life — drawn  him 
sliding  on  Christ  Church  meadows,  sliding  in 
these  worn  and  clouted  shoes  of  his,  and  with 
that  figure  which  even  the  exercise  of  skating 
could  not  have  made  ^  swan-like,'  to  quote  the 
young  lady  in  '  Pickwick '  ?  Johnson  was 
'  sconced '  in  the  sum  of  twopence  for  cutting 
lecture;  and  it  is  rather  curious  that  the  amount 
of  the  fine  was  the  same  four  hundred  years 
earlier,  when  Master  Stoke,  of  Catte  Hall  (whose 
career  we  touched  on  in  the  second  of  these 
sketches),  deserted  his  lessons.  It  was  when  he 
was  thus  sconced  that  Johnson  made  that  reply 
which  Boswell  preserves  '  as  a  specimen  of  the 
antithetical  character  of  his  wit ' — '  Sir,  you  have 
sconced  me  twopence  for  non-attendance  on  a 
lecture  not  worth  a  penny.' 

Sconcing  seems  to  have  been  the  penalty  for 
offences  very  various  in  degree.  '  A  young 
fellow  of  Balliol  College  having,  upon  some 
discontent,  cut  his  throat  very  dangerously,  the 
master  of  his  College    sent  his   servitor  to   the 


^c^.:^-:  -^ 


--ll,.' 

%^' 


-^.■R-^  * 


so 


u     O 


U 


,       '-C 


Georgian  Oxford 

buttery-book  to  sconce  him  five  shillings  ;  and,' 
says  the  Doctor,  '  tell  him  that  the  next  time  he 
cuts  his  throat  I  '11  sconce  him  ten  ! '  This 
prosaic  punishment  might  perhaps  deter  some 
Werthers  from  playing  with  edged  tools. 

From  Boswell's  meagre  account  of  Johnson's 
Oxford  career  we  gather  some  facts  which  supple- 
ment the  description  of  Gibbon.  The  future 
historian  went  into  residence  twenty-three  years 
after  Johnson  departed  without  taking  his  degree. 
Gibbon  was  a  gentleman  commoner,  and  was 
permitted  by  the  easy  discipHne  of  Magdalen  to 
behave  just  as  he  pleased.  He  '  eloped,'  as  he 
says,  from  Oxford,  as  often  as  he  chose,  and 
went  up  to  town,  where  he  was  by  no  means 
the  ideal  of  '  the  Manly  Oxonian  in  London.' 
The  fellows  of  Magdalen,  possessing  a  revenue 
which  private  avarice  might  easily  have  raised 
to  ^30,000,  took  no  interest  in  their  pupils. 
Gibbon's  tutor  read  a  few  Latin  plays  with  his 
pupil,  in  a  style  of  dry  and  literal  translation. 
The   other    fellows,    less    conscientious,    passed 


Oxford 

their  lives  in  tippling  and  tattling,  discussing  the 
'  Oxford  Toasts,'  and  drinking  other  toasts  to 
the  king  over  the  w^ater.  '  Some  duties,'  says 
Gibbon,  '  may  possibly  have  been  imposed  on 
the  poor  scholars,'  but  '  the  velvet  cap  was  the 
cap  of  liberty,'  and  the  gentleman  commoner 
consulted  only  his  own  pleasure.  Johnson  was 
a  poor  scholar,  and  on  him  duties  were  imposed. 
He  was  requested  to  write  an  ode  on  the  Gun- 
powder Plot,  and  Boswell  thinks  '  his  vivacity 
and  imagination  must  have  produced  something 
fine.'  He  neglected,  however,  with  his  usual 
indolence,  this  opportunity  of  producing  some- 
thing fine.  Another  exercise  imposed  on  the 
poor  was  the  translation  of  Mr.  Pope's  'Messiah,' 
in  which  the  young  Pembroke  man  succeeded 
so  well  that,  by  Mr.  Pope's  own  generous  con- 
fession, future  ages  would  doubt  whether  the 
Enghsh  or  the  Latin  piece  was  the  original. 
Johnson  complained  that  no  man  could  be 
properly  inspired  by  the  Pembroke  '  coll,'  or 
college  beer,  which  was  then  commonly  drunk 
158 


Georgian  Oxford 

by  undergraduates,  still  guiltless  of  Rhine  wines, 

and  of  collecting  Chinese  monsters. 

Carmina  vts  nostri  scribant  meliora  poeta 
Ingenimn  jubeas  purior  haustus  alat. 

In  spite  of  the  muddy  beer,  the  poverty,  and 
the  '  bitterness  mistaken  for  frolic,'  with  which 
Johnson  entertained  the  other  undergraduates 
round  Pembroke  gate,  he  never  ceased  to  respect 
his  college.  *  His  love  and  regard  for  Pembroke 
he  entertained  to  the  last,'  while  of  his  old  tutor 
he  said,  '  a  man  who  becomes  Jorden's  pupil 
becomes  his  son.'  Gibbon's  sneer  is  a  foil  to 
Johnson's  kindhness.  '  I  applaud  the  filial  piety 
which  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  imitate.  .  .  . 
To  the  University  of  Oxford  I  acknowledge  no 
obHgations,  and  she  will  as  cheerfully  renounce 
me  for  a  son,  as  I  am  willing  to  disclaim  her  for 
a  mother.' 

Johnson  was  a  man  who  could  take  the 
rough  with  the  smooth,  and,  to  judge  by  all 
accounts,  the  Oxford  of  the  earlier  half  of 
the   eighteenth   century   was   excessively   rough. 

159 


Oxford 

Manners  were  rather  primitive :  a  big  fire  burned 
in  the  centre  of  BalHol  Hall,  and  round  this  fire, 
one  night  in  every  year,  it  is  said  that  all  the 
world  was  welcome  to  a  feast  of  ale  and  bread 
and  cheese.  Every  guest  paid  his  shot  by  sing- 
ing a  song  or  telling  a  story  ;  and  one  can 
fancy  Johnson  sharing  in  this  barbaric  hospi- 
tality. ^  What  learning  can  they  have  who  are 
destitute  of  all  principles  of  civil  behaviour  ? ' 
says  a  writer  from  whose  journal  (printed  in 
1746)  Southey  has  made  some  extracts.  The 
diarist  was  a  Puritan  of  the  old  leaven,  who 
visited  Oxford  shortly  before  Johnson's  period, 
and  who  speaks  of  '  a  power  of  gross  darkness 
that  may  be  felt  constantly  prevailing  in  that 
place  of  wisdom  and  of  subtlety,  but  not  of 
God.  ...  In  this  wicked  place  the  scholars 
are  the  rudest,  most  giddy,  and  unruly  rabble, 
and  most  mischievous.'  But  this  strange  and 
unfriendly  critic  was  a  Nonconformist,  in  times 
when  good  Churchmen  showed  their  piety  by 
wrecking  chapels  and  'rabbUng'  ministers.  In 
160 


Georgian  Oxford 

our  days  only  the  Davenport  Brothers  and  simi- 
lar professors  of  strange  creeds  sufiFer  from  the 
manly  piety  of  the  undergraduates. 

Of  all  the  carping,  cross-grained,  scandal- 
loving,  Whiggish  assailants  of  Alma  Mater ^  the 
author  of  Terrce  Filius  was  the  most  persistent. 
The  first  little  volume  which  contains  the  num- 
bers of  this  bi-weekly  periodical  (printed  for  R. 
Franklin,  under  Tom's  Coflee-house,  in  Russell 
Street,  Covent  Garden,  mdccxxvi.)  is  not  at  all 
rare,  and  is  well  worth  a  desultory  reading. 
What  strikes  one  most  in  Terrce  Filius  is  the 
religious  discontent  of  the  bihous  author.  One 
thinks,  foolishly  of  course,  of  even  Georgian 
Whigs  as  orthodox  men,  at  least  in  their  under- 
graduate days.  The  mere  aspect  of  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen's  work  on  the  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  is  enough  to  banish  this 
pleasing  delusion.  The  Deists  and  Freethinkers 
had  their  followers  in  Johnson's  day  among  the 
undergraduates,  though  scepticism,  like  Whig- 
gery,  was  unpopular,  and   might   be  punished. 

i6i 


Oxford 

Johnson  says,  that  when  he  was  a  boy  he  was  a 
lax  talker^  rather  than  a  lax  thinker^  against 
religion ;  '  but  lax  talking  against  religion  at 
Oxford  would  not  be  suffered.'  The  author  of 
Terrce  Filius^  however,  never  omits  a  chance  of 
sneering  at  our  faith,  and  at  the  Church  of 
England  as  by  law  established.  In  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  exercises  of  the  Club  of  Wits, 
only  one  respectably  clever  epigram  is  quoted, 
beginning, — 

'  Since  in  religion  all  men  disagree, 
And  some  one  God  believe,  some  thirty,  and  some  three.' 

This  production  ^  was  voted  heretical,'  and  burned 
by  the  hands  of  the  small-beer  drawer,  while  the 
author  was  expelled.  In  the  author's  advice  to 
freshmen,  he  gives  a  not  uninteresting  sketch  of 
these  rudimentary  creatures.  The  chrysalis,  as 
described  by  the  preacher  of  a  University  sermon, 
'  never,  in  his  wildest  moments,  dreamed  of 
being  a  butterfly '  ;  but  the  public  schoolboy 
of  the  last  century  sometimes  came  up  in  what 
he  conceived  to  be  gorgeous  attire*  '  I  observe, 
162 


Georgian  Oxford 

in  the  first  place,  that  you  no  sooner  shake  of! 
the  authority  of  the  birch  but  you  affect  to 
distinguish  yourselves  from  your  dirty  school- 
fellows by  a  new  drugget,  a  pair  of  prim  ruffles, 
a  new  bob-wig,  and  a  brazen-hilted  sword.' 
As  soon  as  they  arrived  in  Oxford,  these  youths 
were  hospitably  received  '  amongst  a  parcel  of 
honest,  merry  fellows,  who  think  themselves 
obliged,  in  honour  and  common  civility,  to  make 
you  damnable  drunk^  and  carry  you,  as  they  call 
it,  a  CORPSE  to  bed.'  When  this  period  of  jollity 
is  ended,  the  freshman  must  declare  his  views. 
He  must  see  that  he  is  in  the  fashion  ;  '  and  let 
your  declarations  be,  that  you  are  Churchmen^ 
and  that  you  believe  as  the  Church  believes. 
For  instance,  you  have  subscribed  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  ;  but  never  venture  to  explain  the 
sense  in  which  you  subscribed  them,  because 
there  are  various  senses  ;  so  many,  indeed,  that 
scarce  two  men  understand  them  in  the  same, 
and  no  true  Churchman  in  that  which  the  words 
bear,  and  in  that  which  they  were  written.' 

163 


Oxford 

This  is  pretty  plain  speaking,  and  Terrce 
Filius  enforces,  by  an  historical  example,  the 
dangers  of  even  political  freethought.  In  17 14 
the  Constitution  Club  kept  King  George's  birth- 
day. The  Constitutional  Party  was  then  the 
name  which  the  Whigs  took  to  themselves, 
though,  thanks  to  the  advance  of  civilisation,  the 
Tories  have  fallen  back  upon  the  same.  The 
Conservative  undergraduates  attacked  the  club, 
sallying  forth  from  their  Jacobite  stronghold  in 
Brasenose  (as  seen  in  our  illustration),  where  the 
'  silly  statue,'  as  Hearne  calls  it,  was  about  that 
time  erected.  The  Whigs  took  refuge  in  Oriel, 
the  Tories  assaulted  the  gates,  and  an  Oriel  man, 
firing  out  of  his  window,  wounded  a  gownsman 
of  Brasenose.  The  Tories,  '  under  terror  of  this 
dangerous  and  unexpected  resistance,  retreated 
from  Oriel.'  Yet  such  was  the  academic  strength 
of  the  Jacobites  and  the  Churchmen,  that  a  Free- 
thinker, or  a  '  Constitutioner,'  could  scarcely  take 
his  degree. 

Terrce  Filius^  who  lashes  the  dons  for  covet- 

164 


Georgian  Oxford 

ousness, greed,  dissipation, rudeness,  and  stupidity, 
often  corroborates  the  Puritan's  report  about  the 
bad  manners  of  the  undergraduates.  Yet  Oxford, 
then  as  now,  did  not  lack  her  exquisites,  and  her 
admirers  of  the  fair.  Terrce  Filius  thus  describes 
a  '  smart,'  as  these  dandies  were  called — Mr. 
Frippery  : 

'  He  is  one  of  those  who  come  in  their  academical  un- 
dress, every  morning  between  ten  and  eleven,  to  Lyne's 
Coffee-house  ;  after  which  he  takes  a  turn  or  two  upon 
the  park,  or  under  Merton  Wall,  whilst  the  dull  regulars 
are  at  dinner  in  their  hall,  according  to  statute  ;  about 
one  he  dines  alone  in  his  chamber  upon  a  boiled  chicken 
or  some  pettitoes  ;  after  which  he  allows  himself  an  hour 
at  least  to  dress  in,  to  make  his  afternoon's  appearance  at 
Lyne's  ;  from  whence  he  adjourns  to  Hamilton's  about 
five  ;  from  whence  (after  strutting  about  the  room  for  a 
while,  and  drinking  a  dram  of  citron),  he  goes  to  chapel, 
to  show  how  genteelly  he  dresses,  and  how  well  he  can 
chaunt.  After  prayers  he  drinks  tea  with  some  celebrated 
toast,  and  then  waits  upon  her  to  Magdalen  Grove  or 
Paradise  Garden,  and  back  again.  He  seldom  eats  any 
supper,  and  never  reads  anything  but  novels  and  romances.' 

The  dress  of  this  hero  and  his  friends  must 
have   made   the   streets   more   gay  than   do   the 

165 


Oxford 

bright-coloured    flannel    coats    of   our  boating 
men. 

'  He  is  easily  distinguished  by  a  stiff  silk  gown,  which 
rustles  in  the  wind  as  he  struts  along  ;  a  flax  tie-wig,  or 
sometimes  a  long  natural  one,  which  reaches  down  below 
his  [well,  say  below  his  waist]  ;  a  broad  bully-cock'd  hat, 
or  a  square  cap  of  about  twice  the  usual  size  ;  white  stock- 
ings ;  thin  Spanish  leather  shoes.  His  clothes  lined  with 
tawdry  silk,  and  his  shirt  ruffled  down  the  bosom  as  well 
as  at  the  wrists.' 

These  '  smarts '  cut  no  such  gallant  figure 
when  they  first  arrived  in  Oxford,  with  their 
fathers  (rusty  old  country  farmers),  in  linsey- 
woolsey  coats,  greasy,  sun-burnt  heads  of  hair, 
clouted  shoes,  yarn  stockings,  flapping  hats,  with 
silver  hatbands,  and  long  musHn  neck-cloths  run 
with  red  at  the  bottom. 

After  this  satire  of  the  undergraduates  we 
may  look  at  the  contemporary  account-book  of 
a  Proctor.  In  1752  Gilbert  White  of  Selborne 
was  Proctor,  and  may  have  fined  young  Gibbon 
of  Magdalen,  who  little  thought  that  Oxford 
boasted  an  official  who  was  to  become  an  Eng- 

166 


Georgian  Oxford 

lish  classic.  White  paid  some  attention  to  dress, 
and  got  a  feather-topp'd,  grizzled  wig  from  Lon- 
don ;  cost  him  £2^  5s.  He  bought  'mountain 
wine,  very  old  and  good,'  and  had  his  crest 
engraved  on  his  teaspoons,  that  everything  might 
be  handsome  about  him.  When  he  treated  the 
Masters  of  Arts  in  Oriel  Hall  they  ate  a  hundred 
pounds  weight  of  biscuits — not,  we  trust,  with- 
out marmalade.  '  A  bowl  of  rum-punch  from 
Horsman's '  cost  half  a  crown.  Fancy  a  jolly 
Proctor  sending  out  for  bowls  of  rum-punch,  and 
that  in  April!  Eggs  cost  a  penny  each,  and  '  three 
oranges  and  a  mouse-trap '  ninepence. 

White,  a  generous  man,  gave  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  '  seven  pounds  of  double-refined 
white  sugar.'  I  like  to  fancy  my  learned  friend, 
the  Proctor,  going  to  the  present  Vice-Chan- 
cellor's with  a  donation  of  white  sugar  !  Manners 
have  certainly  changed  in  the  direction  of  severity. 
'  Share  of  the  expense  for  Mr.  Butcher's  release  ' 
came  to  ten  and  sixpence.  What  had  Mr. 
Butcher  been  doing  ?     The    Proctor  went  '  to 

167 


Oxford 

Blenheim  with  Nan,'  and  it  cost  him  fifteen  and 
sixpence.  Perhaps  she  was  one  of  the  '  Oxford 
Toasts '  of  a  contemporary  satire.  Strawberries 
were  fourpence  a  basket  on  the  ninth  of  June  \ 
and  on  November  6,  White  lost  one  shilling  '  at 
cards,  in  common  room.'  He  went  from  Sel- 
borne  to  Oxford,  '  in  a  post-chaise  with  Jenny 
Croke '  ;  and  he  gave  Jenny  a  '  round  China- 
turene.'  Tea  cost  eight  shillings  a  pound  in 
1752,  while  rum-punch  was  but  half  a  crown  a 
bowl.  White's  highest  terminal  battels  were  but 
^12,  though  he  was  a  hospitable  man,  and 
would  readily  treat  the  other  Proctor  to  a  bowl 
of  punch.  It  is  well  to  remember  White  and 
Johnson  when  the  Gibbon  of  that  or  any  other 
day  bewails  the  intellectual  poverty  of  Oxford. 


168 


POETS   AT   OXFORD 
SHELLEY   AND   LANDOR 


CHAPTER    VIII 

POETS  AT  OXFORD:  SHELLEY  AND  LANDOR 

AT  any  given  time  a  large  number  of  poets 
/-\  may  be  found  among  the  under- 
graduates  at  Oxford,  and  the  younger 
dons.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  what  becomes  of  all 
these  pious  bards,  who  are  a  marked  and  pecu- 
liar people  while  they  remain  in  residence.  The 
undergraduate  poet  is  a  not  uninteresting  study. 
He  wears  his  hair  long,  and  divides  it  down  the 
middle.  His  eye  is  wild  and  wandering,  and 
his  manner  absent,  especially  when  he  is  called 
on  to  translate  a  piece  of  an  ancient  author  in 
lecture.  He  does  not  '  read '  much,  in  the 
technical  sense  of  the  term,  but  consumes  all  the 
novels  that  come  in  his  way,  and  all  the  minor 
poetry.  His  own  verses  the  poet  may  be  heard 
declaiming  aloud,  at  unholy  midnight  hours,  so 

171 


Oxford 

that  his  neighbours  have  been  known  to  break 
his  windows  with  bottles,  and  then  to  throw  in 
all  that  remained  of  the  cold  meats  of  a  supper 
party,  without  interfering  with  the  divine  afflatus. 
When  the  college  poet  has  composed  a  sonnet, 
ode,  or  what  not,  he  sends  it  to  the  Editor  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century^  and  it  returns  to  him 
after  many  days.  At  last  it  appears  in  print,  in 
College  Rhymes^  a  collection  of  mild  verse,  which 
is  (or  was)  printed  at  regular  or  irregular  inter- 
vals, and  was  never  seen  except  in  the  rooms  of 
contributors.  The  poet  also  speaks  at  the 
Union,  where  his  sentiments  are  either  revolu- 
tionary, or  so  wildly  conservative  that  he  looks 
on  Magna  Charta  as  the  first  step  on  the  path 
that  leads  to  England's  ruin.  As  a  politician, 
the  undergraduate  poet  knows  no  mean  between 
Mr.  Peter  Taylor  and  King  John.  He  has  been 
known  to  found  a  Tory  club,  and  shortly  after- 
wards to  swallow  the  formulae  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh. 

The  life  of  the  poet  is,  not  unnaturally,  one 
long  warfare  with  his  dons.     He  cannot  conform 

172 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

himself  to  pedantic  rules,  which  demand  his 
return  to  college  before  midnight.  Though 
often  the  possessor  of  a  sweet  vein  of  clerical 
and  Kebleian  verse,  the  poet  does  not  willingly 
attend  chapel  ;  for  indeed,  as  he  sits  up  all 
night,  it  is  cruel  to  expect  him  to  arise  before 
noon.  About  the  poet's  late  habits  a  story  is 
told,  which  seems  authentic.  A  remarkable  and 
famous  contemporary  singer  was  known  to  his 
fellow-undergraduates  only  by  this  circumstance, 
that  his  melodious  voice  was  heard  declaiming 
anapaests  all  through  the  ambrosial  night.  When 
the  voice  of  the  singer  was  lulled,  three  sharp 
taps  were  heard  in  the  silence.  This  noise  was 
produced  by  the  bard's  Scotch  friend  and  critic 
in  knocking  the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe.  These 
feasts  of  reason  are  almost  incompatible  with  the 
early  devotion  which,  strangely  enough,  Shelley 
found  time  and  inclination  to  attend. 

Now  it  is  (or  was)  the  belief  of  under- 
graduates that  you  might  break  the  decalogue 
and   the   laws  of  man   in   every   direction  with 

173 


Oxford 

safety  and  the  approval  of  the  dons,  if  you  only 
went  regularly  to  chapel.  As  the  poet  cannot 
do  this  (unless  he  is  a  '  sleepless  man '),  his 
existence  is  a  long  struggle  with  the  fellows  and 
tutors  of  his  college.  The  manners  of  poets 
vary,  of  course,  with  the  tastes  of  succeeding 
generations.  I  have  heard  of  two  (Thyrsis  and 
Corydon)  '  who  lived  in  Oxford  as  if  it  were  a 
large  country-house.' 

Of  other  singers,  the  latest  of  the  heavenly 
quire,  it  is  invidiously  said  that  they  build  shrines 
to  Blue  China  and  other  ceramic  abominations 
of  the  Philistine,  and  worship  the  same  in  their 
rooms.  Of  this  sort  it  is  not  the  moment  to 
speak.  Time  has  not  proved  them.  But  the 
old  poets  of  ten  years  ago  lived  a  militant  life  ; 
they  rarely  took  good  classes  (though  they  com- 
peted industriously  for  the  Newdigate,  writing 
in  the  metre  oi  Dolores)^  and  it  not  uncommonly 
happened  that  they  left  Oxford  without  degrees. 
They  were  often  very  agreeable  fellows,  as  long 
as  one  was  in  no  way  responsible  for  them  ;  but 

174 


Toets  at  Oxford 

it  was  almost  impossible — human  nature  being 
what  it  is — that  they  should  be  much  appreciated 
by  tutors,  proctors,  and  heads  of  houses.  How 
could  these  worthy,  learned,  and  often  kind  and 
courteous  persons  know  when  they  were  dealing 
with  a  lad  of  genius,  and  when  they  had  to  do 
with  an  affected  and  pretentious  donkey  ? 

These  remarks  are  almost  the  necessary 
preface  to  a  consideration  of  the  existence  of 
Shelley  and  Landor  at  Oxford — the  Oxford  of 
1793-1810.  Whatever  the  effects  may  be  on 
Shelleyan  commentators,  it  must  be  said  that,  to 
the  donnish  eye,  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  was 
nothing  more  or  less  than  the  ordinary  Oxford 
poet,  of  the  quieter  type.  In  Walter  Savage 
Landor,  authority  recognised  a  noisier  and  row- 
dier specimen  of  the  same  class.  People  who 
have  to  do  with  hundreds  of  young  men  at  a 
time  are  unavoidably  compelled  to  generalise. 
No  don,  that  was  a  don,  could  have  seen  Shelley 
or  Landor  as  they  are  described  to  us  without 
hastily  classing  them  in  the  category  of  poets 

^11 


Oxford 

who  would  come  to  no  good  and  do  little  credit 
to  the  college.  Landor  went  up  to  Trinity 
College  in  1793.  It  was  the  dreadful  year  of 
the  Terror,  when  good  Englishmen  hated  the 
cruel  murderers  of  kings  and  queens.  Landor 
was  a  good  Englishman,  of  course,  and  he  never 
forgave  the  French  the  public  assassination  of 
Marie  Antoinette.  But  he  must  needs  be  a 
Jacobin,  and  wear  his  own  unpowdered  hair — 
the  Poet  thus  declaring  himself  at  once  in  the 
regular  recognised  fashion.  '  For  a  portion  of 
the  time  he  certainly  read  hard,  but  the  results 
he  kept  to  himself;  for  here,  as  at  Rugby,  he 
declined  everything  in  the  shape  of  competition.' 
(Now  competition  is  the  essence  of  modern 
University  study.)  '  Though  I  wrote  better 
Latin  verses  than  any  undergraduate  or  graduate 
in  the  University,'  says  Landor,  '  I  could  never 
be  persuaded  by  my  tutor  or  friends  to  contend 
for  any  prize  whatever.'  The  pleasantest  and 
most  profitable  hours  that  Landor  could  remem- 
ber at  Oxford  '  were  passed  with  Walter  Birch 
176 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

in  the  Magdalen  Walk,  by  the  half-hidden 
Cherwell.'  Hours  like  these  are  indeed  the 
pleasantest  and  most  profitable  that  any  of  us 
pass  at  Oxford.  The  one  duty  which  that 
University,  by  virtue  of  its  very  nature,  has  never 
neglected,  is  the  assembling  of  young  men  to- 
gether from  all  over  England,  and  giving  them 
three  years  of  liberty  of  life,  of  leisure,  and  of 
discussion,  in  scenes  which  are  classical  and 
peaceful.  For  these  hours,  the  most  fruitful  of 
our  lives,  we  are  grateful  to  Oxford,  as  long  as 
friendship  lives  ;  that  is,  as  long  as  life  and 
memory  remain  with  us.  And,  '  if  anything 
endure,  if  hope  there  be,'  our  conscious  exist- 
ence in  the  after-world  would  ask  for  no  better 
companions  than  those  who  walked  with  us  by 
the  Isis  and  the  Cherwell. 

Landor  called  himself  '  a  Jacobin,'  though 
his  own  letters  show  that  he  was  as  far  as  the 
most  insolent  young  '  tuft '  from  relishing  doc- 
trines of  human  equality.  He  had  the  reputa- 
tion, however,  of  being  not  only  a  Jacobin,  but 

M  177 


Oxford 

'  a  mad  Jacobin '  ;  too  mad  for  Southey,  who 
was  then  young,  and  a  Liberal.  '  Landor  was 
obHged  to  leave  the  University  for  shooting  at 
one  of  the  Fellows  through  a  window,'  is  the 
account  which  Southey  gave  of  Landor's  rusti- 
cation. Now  fellows  often  put  up  with  a  great 
deal  of  horse-play.  There  is  scarcely  a  more 
touching  story  than  that  of  the  don  who  for  the 
first  time  found  himself  '  screwed  up,'  and 
fastened  within  his  own  oak.  '  What  am  I  to 
do  ? '  the  victim  asked  his  sympathising  scout, 
who  was  on  the  other,  the  free  side  of  the  oak. 
'  Well,  sir,  Mr.  Muff,  sir,  when  'e  's  screwed  up 
'e  sends  for  the  blacksmith,'  replied  the  servant. 
What  a  position  for  a  man  having  authority,  to 
be  in  the  constant  habit  of  sending  for  the 
blacksmith !  Fellows  have  not  very  unfrequently 
been  fired  at  with  Roman  candles,  or  bombarded 
with  soda-water  bottles  full  of  gunpowder.  One 
has  also  known  sparrows  shot  from  Balliol 
windows  on  the  Martyrs'  Memorial  of  our  illus- 
tration.     In  this  case,  too,  the  sportsman  was  a 

178 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

poet.  But  deliberately  to  pot  at  a  fellow,  '  to 
go  for  him  with  a  shot  gun,'  as  the  repentant 
American  said  he  would  do  in  future,  after  his 
derringer  missed  fire,  is  certainly  a  strong 
measure.  No  college  which  pretended  to  main- 
tain discipline  could  allow  even  a  poet  to  shoot 
thus  wildly.  In  truth,  Landor's  offence  has 
been  exaggerated  by  Southey.  It  was  nothing 
out  of  the  common.  The  poet  was  giving  '  an 
after-dinner  party'  in  his  rooms.  The  men 
were  mostly  from  Christ  Church  ;  for  Landor 
was  intimate,  he  says,  with  only  one  under- 
graduate of  his  own  college.  Trinity.  On  the 
opposite  side  of  the  quadrangle  a  Tory  and  a 
butt,  named  Leeds,  was  entertaining  persons 
whom  the  Jacobin  Landor  calls  '  servitors  and 
other  raff  of  every  description.'  The  guests  at 
the  rival  wine-parties  began  to  ^row'  each  other, 
Landor  says,  adding,  '  All  the  time  I  was  only  a 
spectator,  for  I  should  have  blushed  to  have  had 
any  conversation  with  them,  particularly  out  of 
a  window.      But  my  gun  was  lying  on  a  table  in 

179 


Oxford 

the  room,  and  I  had  in  a  back  closet  some  Httle 
shot.  I  proposed,  as  they  had  closed  the  case- 
ments, and  as  the  shutters  were  on  the  outside, 
to  fire  a  volley.  It  was  thought  a  good  trick, 
and  accordingly  I  went  into  my  bedroom  and 
fired.'  Mr.  Leeds  very  superfluously  complained 
to  the  President.  Landor  adopted  the  worst 
possible  line  of  defence,  and  so  the  University 
and  this  poet  parted  company. 

It  seems  to  have  been  generally  understood 
that  Landor's  affair  was  a  boyish  escapade.  A 
copious  literature  is  engaged  with  the  subject  of 
Shelley's  expulsion.  As  the  story  is  told  by  Mr. 
Hogg,  in  his  delightful  book,  the  Life  of  Shelley^ 
that  poet's  career  at  Oxford  was  a  typical  one. 
There  are  in  every  generation  youths  like  him, 
in  unworldliness,  wildness,  and  dreaminess, 
though  unlike  him,  of  course,  in  genius.  The 
divine  spark  has  not  touched  them,  but  they, 
like  Shelley,  are  still  of  the  band  whom  the 
world  has  not  tamed.  As  Mr.  Hogg's  book  is 
out  of  print,  and  rare,  it  would  be  worth  while, 

i8o 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

did  space  permit,  to  reproduce  some  of  his 
wonderfully  life-like  and  truthful  accounts  of 
Oxford  as  she  was  in  1810.  The  University 
has  changed  in  many  ways,  and  in  most  ways 
for  the  better.  Perhaps  that  old,  indolent,  and 
careless  Oxford  was  better  adapted  to  the  life  of 
such  an  almost  unexampled  genius  as  Shelley. 
When  his  Eton  friends  asked  him  whether  he 
still  meant  to  be  '  the  Atheist,'  that  is,  the  rebel 
he  had  been  at  school,  he  said,  'No;  the  college 
authorities  were  civil,  and  left  him  alone.'  Let 
us  remember  this  when  the  learned  Professor  of 
Poetry  at  Oxford,  Mr.  Shairp,  calls  Shelley  'an 
Atheist.'  Mr.  Hogg  sometimes  complains  that 
undergraduates  were  left  too  much  alone.  But 
who  could  have  safely  advised  or  securely  guided 
Shelley  ? 

Undergraduates  are  now  more  closely  looked 
after,  as  far  as  reading  goes,  than  perhaps  they 
like — certainly  much  more  than  Shelley  would 
have  liked.  But  when  we  turn  from  study  to 
the  conduct  of  life,  is  it  not  plain  that  no  official 

181 


Oxford 

interference  can  be  of  real  value  ?  Friendship 
and  confidence  may,  and  often  does,  exist  be- 
tween tutors  and  pupils.     There  are  tutors  so 


In  the  Garden  of  JForcester  College. 

By  Richmond  Seeley. 

happily  gifted  with  sympathy,  and  with  a  kind 
of  eternal  youth  of  heart  and  intellect,  that  they 
become  the  friends  of  generation  after  generation 
of  freshmen.  This  is  fortunate  ;  but  who  can 
wonder  that  middle-aged  men,  seeing  the  gene- 
182 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

rations  succeed  and  resemble  each  other,  lose 
their  powers  of  understanding,  of  directing,  of 
aiding  the  young,  who  are  thus  cast  at  once  on 
their  own  resources  ?  One  has  occasionally 
heard  clever  men  complain  that  they  were 
neglected  by  their  seniors,  that  their  hearts  and 
brains  were  full  of  perilous  stuff,  which  no  one 
helped  them  to  unpack.  And  it  is  true  that 
modern  education,  when  it  meets  the  impatience 
of  youth,  often  produces  an  unhappy  ferment  in 
the  minds  of  men.  To  put  it  shortly,  clever 
students  have  to  go  through  their  age  oi  Sturm 
U7id  Drang^  and  they  are  sometimes  disappointed 
when  older  people,  their  tutors,  for  example,  do 
not  help  them  to  weather  the  storm.  It  is  a 
tempest  in  which  every  one  must  steer  for  him- 
self, after  all  ;  and  Shelley  '  was  borne  darkly, 
fearfully  afar,'  into  unplumbed  seas  of  thought 
and  experience.  When  Mr.  Hogg  complains 
that  his  friend  was  too  much  left  to  himself  to 
study  and  think  as  he  pleased,  let  us  remember 
that  no  one  could  have  helped  Shelley.     He  was 


Oxford 

better  at  Oxford  without  his  old  Dr.  Lind, 
'  with  whom  he  used  to  curse  George  iii. 
after  tea.' 

There  are  few  chapters  in  Uterary  history 
more  fascinating  than  those  which  tell  the  story 
of  Shelley  at  Oxford.  We  see  him  entering  the 
hall  of  University  College — a  tall,  shy  striphng, 
bronzed  with  the  September  sun,  with  long  elf- 
locks.  He  takes  his  seat  by  a  stranger,  and  in  a 
moment  holds  him  spell-bound,  while  he  talks 
of  Plato,  and  Goethe,  and  Alfieri,  of  Italian 
poetry,  and  Greek  philosophy.  Mr.  Hogg 
draws  a  curious  sketch  of  Shelley  at  work  in  his 
rooms,  where  seven-shiUing  pieces  were  being 
dissolved  in  acid  in  the  teacups,  where  there 
was  a  great  hole  in  the  floor  that  the  poet  had 
burned  with  his  chemicals.  The  one-eyed  scout, 
'  the  Arimaspian,'  must  have  had  a  time  of  tribu- 
lation (being  a  conscientious  and  fatherly  man) 
with  this  odd  master.  How  characteristic  of 
Shelley  it  was  to  lend  the  glow  of  his  fancy  to 
science,  to  declare  that  things,  not  thoughts, 
184 


l^oets  at  Oxford 

mineralogy,  not  literature,  must  occupy  human 
minds  for  the  future,  and  then  to  leave  a  lecture 
on  mineralogy  in  the  middle,  and  admit  that 
'  stones  are  dull  things  after  all  ! '  Not  less 
Shelleyan  was  the  adventure  on  Magdalen  Bridge, 
the  beautiful  bridge  of  our  illustration,  from 
which  Oxford,  with  the  sunset  behind  it,  looks 
like  a  fairy  city  of  the  Arabian  Nights — a  town 
of  palaces  and  princesses,  rather  than  of  proctors. 

'  One  Sunday  we  had  been  reading  Plato  together  so 
diUgently,  that  the  usual  hour  of  exercise  passed  away 
unperceived  :  we  sallied  forth  hastily  to  take  the  air  for 
half-an-hour  before  dinner.  In  the  middle  of  Magdalen 
Bridge  we  met  a  woman  with  a  child  in  her  arms. 
Shelley  was  more  attentive  at  that  instant  to  our  conduct 
in  a  life  that  was  past,  or  to  come,  than  to  a  decorous 
regulation  of  the  present,  according  to  the  established 
usages  of  society,  in  that  fleeting  moment  of  eternal 
duration  styled  the  nineteenth  century.  With  abrupt 
dexterity  he  caught  hold  of  the  child.  The  mother,  who 
might  well  fear  that  it  was  about  to  be  thrown  over  the 
parapet  of  the  bridge  into  the  sedgy  waters  below,  held 
it  fast  by  its  long  train. 

' "  Will  your  baby  tell  us  anything  about  pre-exist- 
ence,  Madam  }  "  he  asked,  in  a  piercing  voice,  and  with 
a  wistful  look.' 

185 


Oxford 

Shelley  and  Hogg  seem  almost  to  have  lived 
in  reality  the  life  of  the  Scholar  Gipsy.  In  Mr. 
Arnold's  poem,  w^hich  has  made  permanent  for 
all  time  the  charm,  the  sentiment  of  Oxfordshire 
scenery,  the  poet  seems  to  be  following  the 
track  of  Shelley.  In  Mr.  Hogg's  memoirs  we 
hear  little  of  summer  ;  it  seems  always  to  have 
been  in  winter  that  the  friends  took  their  long 
rambles,  in  which  Shelley  set  free,  in  talk,  his 
inspiration.     One  thinks  of  him 

'  in  winter,  on  the  causeway  chill, 
Where  home  through  flooded  fields  foot  travellers  go,* 

returning  to  the  supper  in  Hogg's  rooms,  to  the 
curious  desultory  meals,  the  talk,  and  the  deep 
slumber  by  the  roaring  fire,  the  small  head  lying 
perilously  near  the  flames.  One  would  not  linger 
here  over  the  absurd  injustice  of  his  expulsion 
from  the  University.  It  is  pleasant  to  know,  on 
Mr.  Hogg's  testimony,  that  '  residence  at  Oxford 
was  exceedingly  delightful  to  Shelley,  and  on  all 
accounts  most  beneficial.'  At  Oxford,  at  least, 
i86 


T^oets  at  Oxford 

he  seems  to  have  been  happy,  he  who  so  rarely 
knew  happiness,  and  who,  if  he  made  another 
suffer,  himself  suffered  so  much  for  others.  The 
memory  of  Shelley  has  deeply  entered  into  the 
sentiment  of  Oxford.  Thinking  of  him  in  his 
glorious  youth,  and  of  his  residence  here,  may 
we  not  say,  with  the  shepherd  in  Theocritus,  of 
the  divine  singer  : 

aXff  in  ifxev  ^wot?  evapiOixLOS  wc^eXe?  elfxeu, 
a>5  Tot  iyojv  ivojxevov  av  wpea  ra?  /caXa?  atya? 
<jio)i>a<;  elaaicjv,  tv  S'  vtto  Spvalu  r)  viro  Treu/cat? 
aBv  /xeXtcrSd/x€i/09  KareKeKXiao,  dele  Ko/xara. 

'  Ah,  would  that  in  my  days  thou  hadst  been  num- 
bered with  the  living,  how  gladly  on  the  hills  would  I 
have  herded  thy  pretty  she-goats,  and  listened  to  thy 
voice,  whilst  thou,  under  oaks  and  pine-trees  lying,  didst 
sweetly  sing,  divine  Comatas  1 ' 


187 


A   GENERAL   VIEW 


CHAPTER    IX 

A  GENERAL  VIEW 

WE  have  looked  at  Oxford  life  in  so  many 
different  periods,  that  now,  perhaps, 
we  may  regard  it,  like  our  artist,  as  a 
whole,  and  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  its  present 
condition.  We  may  ask  St.  Bernard's  question, 
Whither  hast  thou  come?  a  question  to  which 
there  are  so  many  answers  readily  given,  from 
within  and  without  the  University.  It  is  not 
probable  that  the  place  will  vary,  in  essential 
character,  from  that  which  has  all  along  been  its 
own.  We  shall  have  considered  Oxford  to  very 
little  purpose,  if  it  is  not  plain  that  the  Univer- 
sity has  been  less  a  home  of  learning,  on  the 
whole,  than  a  microcosm  of  EngHsh  intellectual 
life.  At  Oxford  the  men  have  been  thinking 
what  England  was  to  think  a  few  months  later, 

191 


Oxford 

and  they  have  been  thinking  with  the  passion  and 
the  energy  of  youth.  The  impulse  to  thought 
has  not,  perhaps,  very  often  been  given  by  any 
mind  or  minds  within  the  college  walls  ;  it  has 
come  from  without — from  Italy,  from  France, 
from  London,  from  a  country  vicarage,  perhaps, 
from  the  voice  of  a  wandering  preacher.  Whence- 
soever  the  leaven  came,  Oxford  (being  so  small, 
and  in  a  way  so  homogeneous)  has  always  fer- 
mented readily,  and  promptly  distributed  the 
new  forces,  religious  or  intellectual,  throughout 
England. 

It  is  characteristic  of  England  that  the  excit- 
ing topics,  the  questions  that  move  the  people 
most,  have  always  been  religious,  or  deeply 
tinctured  with  religion.  Conservative  as  Oxford 
is,  the  home  of  '  impossible  causes,'  she  has 
always  given  asylum  to  new  doctrines,  to  all  the 
thoughts  which  comfortable  people  call  '  danger- 
ous.' We  have  seen  her  agitated  by  Lollardism, 
which  never  quite  died,  perhaps,  till  its  eager 
protest  against  the  sacerdotal  ideal  was  fused  into 

192 


The   Prince    of  Wales'    Rooms,    Magdalen    College. 


A  General  View 

the  fire  of  the  Reformation.  Oxford  was  Hterally 
devastated  by  that  movement,  and  by  the  Cathohc 
reaction,  and  then  was  disturbed  for  a  century 
and  a  half  by  the  war  of  Puritanism,  and  of  Tory 
AngHcanism.  The  latter  had  scarcely  had  time 
to  win  the  victory,  and  to  fall  into  a  doze  by 
her  pipe  of  port,  when  Evangelical  religion  came 
to  vex  all  that  was  moderate,  mature,  and  fond 
of  repose.  The  revolutionary  enthusiasm  of 
Shelley's  time  was  comparatively  feeble,  because 
it  had  no  connection  with  religion  ;  or,  at  least, 
no  connection  with  the  religion  to  which  our 
countrymen  were  accustomed.  Between  the  era 
of  the  Revolution  and  our  own  day,  two  reli- 
gious tempests  and  one  secular  storm  of  thought 
have  swept  over  Oxford,  and  the  University  is 
at  present,  if  one  may  say  so,  like  a  ship  in  a 
heavy  swell,  the  sea  looking  much  more  tranquil 
than  it  really  is. 

The  Tractarian  movement  was,  of  course, 
the  first  of  the  religious  disturbances  to  which 
we  refer,  and  much  the  most  powerful. 


Oxford 

It  is  curious  to  read  about  that  movement  in 
the  Apologia^  for  example,  of  Cardinal  Newman. 
On  what  singular  topics  men's  minds  were  bent! 
what  queer  survivals  of  the  speculations  of  the 
Schools  agitated  them  as  they  walked  round 
Christ  Church  meadows  !  They  enlightened 
each  other  on  things  transcendental,  yet  material, 
on  matters  unthinkable,  and,  properly  speaking, 
unspeakable.  It  is  as  if  they  '  spoke  with 
tongues,'  which  had  a  meaning  then,  and  for 
them,  but  which  to  us,  some  forty  years  later, 
seem  as  mea^ningless  as  the  inscriptions  of  Easter 
Island. 

This  was  the  shape,  the  Tractarian  movement 
was  the  shape,  in  which  the  great  Romantic 
reaction  laid  hold  on  England  and  Oxford.  The 
father  of  all  the  revival  of  old  doctrines  and  old 
rituals  in  our  Church,  the  originator  of  that 
wistful  return  to  things  beautiful  and  long  dead, 
was — Walter  Scott.  Without  him,  and  his 
wonderful  wand  which  made  the  dry  bones  of 
history   live,   England   and    France    would   not 

194 


A  General  View 

have  known  this  picturesque  reaction.  The  stir 
in  these  two  countries  was  curiously  characteristic 
of  their  genius.      In  France  it  put  on,  in  the  first 


K'^ 


^^«i-^  i-s^ss^  IS 


Old  Episcopal  Palace. 

From  a  Draiving  by  R.  Kent  T/:omiS, 

place,  the  shape  of  art,  of  poetry,  painting, 
sculpture.  Romanticism  blossomed  in  1830, 
and  bore  fruit  for  ten  years.  The  religious 
reaction  was  a  punier  thing  ;  the  great  Abbe, 
who    was   the    Newman    of   France,   was   him- 

195 


Oxford 

self  unable  to  remain  within  the  fantastic 
church  that  he  built  out  of  medieval  ruins.  In 
England,  and  especially  in  Oxford,  the  aesthetic 
admiration  of  the  Past  was  promptly  transmuted 
into  religion.  Doctrines  which  men  thought 
dead  were  resuscitated  ;  and  from  Oxford  came, 
not  poetry  or  painting,  but  the  sermons  of  New- 
man, the  Tracts^  the  whole  religious  force  which 
has  transformed  and  revivified  the  Church  of 
England.  That  force  is  still  working,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  in  the  University  of  to-day,  under 
conditions  much  changed,  but  not  without  thrills 
of  the  old  volcanic  energy. 

Probably  the  Anglican  ideas  ceased  to  be  the 
most  powerfully  agitating  of  intellectual  forces  in 
Oxford  about  1845.  ^  ^^^  current  came  in 
from  Rugby,  and  the  influence  of  Dr.  Arnold 
and  the  natural  tide  of  reaction  began  to  run 
very  strong.  If  we  had  the  apologice  of  the  men 
who  thought  most,  about  the  time  when  Clough 
was  an  undergraduate,  we  should  see  that 
the    influence    of    the    Anglican    divines    had 

196 


A  General  View 

become  a  thing  of  sentiment  and  curiosity.  The 
life  had  not  died  out  of  it,  but  the  people  whom 
it  could  permanently  affect  were  now  limited  in 
number  and  easily  recognisable.  This  form  of 
religion  might  tempt  and  attract  the  strongest 
men  for  a  while,  but  it  certainly  would  not  retain 
them.  It  is  by  this  time  a  matter  of  history, 
though  we  are  speaking  of  our  contemporaries, 
that  the  abyss  between  the  Lives  of  the  English 
Saints^  and  the  Nemesis  of  Faith^  was  narrow, 
and  easily  crossed.  There  was  in  Oxford  that 
enthusiasm  for  certain  German  ideas  which  had 
previously  been  felt  for  medieval  ideas.  Liberal- 
ism in  history,  philosophy,  and  religion  was  the 
ruling  power  ;  and  people  believed  in  Liberalism. 
What  is,  or  used  to  be,  called  the  Broad  Church, 
was  the  birth  of  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  of 
Liberalism  in  religion  at  Oxford.  The  Essays 
and  Reviews  were  what  the  Tracts  had  been  ; 
and  Homeric  battles  were  fought  over  the  income 
of  the  Regius  Professor  of  Greek.  When  that 
affair  was  settled  Liberalism  had  had  her  innings, 

197 


Oxford 

there  was  no  longer  a  single  dominant  intellectual 
force  ;  but  the  old  storms,  slowly  subsiding,  left 
the  ship  of  the  University  lurching  and  rolling  in 
a  heavy  swell. 

People  believed  in  Liberalism  !  Their  faith 
worked  miracles  ;  and  the  great  University  Com- 
mission performed  many  wonderful  works,  bidding 
close  fellowships  be  open,  and  giving  all  power 
into  the  hands  of  Examiners.  Their  dispensa- 
tion still  survives  ;  the  large  examining-machine 
works  night  and  day,  in  term  time  and  vacation, 
and  yet  we  are  not  happy.  The  age  in  Oxford, 
as  in  the  world  at  large,  is  the  age  of  collapsed 
opinions.  Never  men  believed  more  fervidly  in 
any  revelation  than  the  men  of  twenty  years  ago 
believed  in  political  economy,  free  trade,  open 
competition,  and  the  reign  of  Common-sense  and 
of  Mr.  Cobden.  Where  is  that  faith  now  ? 
Many  of  the  middle-aged  disciples  of  the  Church 
of  Common-sense  are  still  in  our  midst.  They 
say  the  old  sayings,  they  intone  the  old  responses, 
but  somehow  it  seems  that  scepticism  is  abroad  ; 

198 


A  General  View 

it  seems  that  the  world  is  wider  than  their  system. 
Not  even  open  examinations  for  fellowships  and 
scholarships,  not  half  a  dozen  new  schools,  and 
science,  and  the  Museum,  and  the  Slade  Pro- 
fessorship of  Art,  have  made  Oxford  that  ideal 
University  which  was  expected  to  come  down 
from  Heaven  like  the  New  Jerusalem. 

We  have  glanced  at  the  history  of  Oxford  to 
little  purpose  if  we  have  not  learned  that  it  is  an 
eminently  discontented  place.  There  is  room  in 
colleges  and  common  rooms  for  both  sorts  of 
discontent — the  ignoble,  which  is  the  child  of 
vanity  and  weakness  ;  and  the  noble,  which  is  the 
unassuaged  thirst  for  perfection.  The  present 
result  of  the  last  forty  years  in  Oxford  is  a  dis- 
content which  is  constantly  trying  to  improve  the 
working,  and  to  widen  the  intellectual  injfluence, 
of  the  University.  There  are  more  ways  than 
one  in  which  this  feeling  gets  vent.  The  sim- 
plest, and  perhaps  the  most  honest  and  worthy 
impulse,  is  that  which  makes  the  best  of  the  pre- 
sent arrangements.      Great   religious  excitement 

199 


Oxford 

and  religious  discussion  being  in  abeyance,  for 
once,  the  energy  of  the  place  goes  out  in  teaching. 
The  last  reforms  have  made  Oxford  a  huge 
collection  of  schools,  in  which  physical  science, 
history,  philosophy,  philology,  scholarship,  the- 
ology, and  almost  everything  in  the  world  but 
archaeology,  are  being  taught  and  learned  with 
very  great  vigour.  The  hardest  worked  of  men 
is  a  conscientious  college  tutor  ;  and  almost  all 
tutors  are  conscientious.  The  professors  being 
an  ornamental,  but  (with  few  exceptions)  fnerely 
ornamental,  order  of  beings,  the  tutors  have  to 
do  the  work  of  a  University,  which,  for  the 
moment,  is  a  teaching-machine.  They  deliver  I 
know  not  how  many  sets  of  lectures  a  year,  and 
each  lecture  demands  a  fresh  and  full  ac- 
quaintance with  the  latest  ideas  of  French, 
German,  and  Italian  scholars.  No  one  can  afford, 
or  is  willing,  to  lag  behind  ;  every  one  is  '  gladly 
learning,'  like  Chaucer's  clerk,  as  well  as 
earnestly  teaching.  The  knowledge  and  the 
industry  of  these  gentlemen  is  a  perpetual  marvel 


200 


A  General  View 

to  the  ^  bellelettristic  trifler.'  New  studies,  like 
that  of  Celtic,  and  of  the  obscurer  Oriental 
tongues,  have  sprung  up  during  recent  years,  have 
grown  into  strength  and  completeness.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  say,  perhaps,  that  these  facts  dis- 
pose of  the  popular  idea  about  the  luxury  of  the 
long  vacation.  During  the  more  part  of  the  long 
vacation  the  conscientious  teacher  must  be  toiling 
after  the  great  mundane  movement  in  learning. 
He  must  be  acquiring  the  very  freshest  ideas  about 
Sanscrit  and  Greek  ;  about  the  Ogham  characters 
and  the  Cyprian  syllabary  ;  about  early  Greek 
inscriptions  and  the  origins  of  Roman  history, 
in  addition  to  reading  the  familiar  classics  by  the 
light  of  the  latest  commentaries. 

What  is  the  tangible  result,  and  what  the  gain 
of  all  these  labours  ?  The  answer  is  the  secret 
of  University  discontent.  All  this  accumulated 
knowledge  goes  out  in  teaching,  is  scattered 
abroad  in  lectures,  is  caught  up  in  note-books, 
and  is  poured  out,  with  a  difference,  in  examina- 
tions.     There  is  not  an  amount  of  original  literary 

20I 


Oxford 

work  produced  by  the  University  which  bears 
any  due  proportion  to  the  soUd  materials  accumu- 
lated. It  is  just  the  reverse  of  Falstaffs  case — 
but  one  halfpenny-worth  of  sack  to  an  intolerable 
deal  of  bread  ;  but  a  drop  of  the  spirit  of  learn- 
ing to  cart-loads  of  painfully  acquired  knowledge. 
The  time  and  energy  of  men  is  occupied  in 
amassing  facts,  in  lecturing,  and  then  in  eternal 
examinations.  Even  if  the  results  are  satisfactory 
on  the  whole,  even  if  a  hundred  well-equipped 
young  men  are  turned  out  of  the  examining- 
machine  every  year,  these  arrangements  certainly 
curb  individual  ambition.  If  a  resident  in  Ox- 
ford is  to  make  an  income  that  seems  adequate, 
he  must  lecture,  examine,  and  write  manuals  and 
primers,  till  he  is  grey,  and  till  the  energy  that 
might  have  added  something  new  and  valuable 
to  the  acquisitions  of  the  world  has  departed. 

This  state  of  things  has  produced  the  demand 
for  the  '  Endowment  of  Research.'  It  is  not 
necessary  to  go  into  that  controversy.  English- 
men, as  a  rule,  believe  that  endowed  cats  catch 


202 


A  General  View 

no  mice.  They  would  rather  endow  a  theatre 
than  a  Gelehrter^  if  endow  something  they  must. 
They  have  a  British  sympathy  with  these  beauti- 
ful, if  useless  beings,  the  heads  of  houses,  whom 
it  would  be  necessary  to  abolish  if  Researchers 
were  to  get  the  few  tens  of  thousands  they  require. 
Finally,  it  is  asked  whether  the  learned  might 
not  find  great  endowment  in  economy  ;  for  it  is 
a  fact  that  a  Frenchman,  a  German,  or  an  Italian 
will  '  research '  for  life  on  no  larger  income  than 
a  simple  fellowship  bestows. 

The  great  obstacle  to  this  '  plain  living '  is 
perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  traditional  hospitality 
of  Oxford.  All  her  doors  are  open,  and  every 
stranger  is  kindly  entreated  by  her,  and  she  is 
like  the  '  discreet  housewife  '  in  Homer  ' — 

etoara  ttoXX'  litideicja,  -^apL^ofxepr)  Trapeovroiv. 

In  some  languages  the  same  word  serves  for 
'  stranger'  and  'enemy,'  but  in  the  Oxford  dialect 
'  stranger  '  and  '  guest '  are  synonymous.  Such 
is  the  custom  of  the  place,  and  it  does  not  make 

203 


Oxford 

plain  living  very  easy.  Some  critics  will  be 
anxious  here  to  attack  the  '  aesthetic '  movement. 
One  will  be  expected  to  say  that,  after  the  ideas 
of  Newman,  after  the  ideas  of  Arnold,  and  of 
Jowett,  came  those  of  the  wicked,  the  extrava- 
gant, the  effeminate,  the  immoral  '  Blue  China 
School.'  Perhaps  there  is  something  in  this, 
but  sermons  on  the  subject  are  rather  luxuries 
than  necessaries  in  the  present  didactic  mood  of 
the  Press.  '  They  were  friends  of  ours,  more- 
over,' as  Aristotle  says,  'who  brought  these  ideas 
in';  so  the  subject  may  be  left  with  this  brief 
notice.  As  a  piece  of  practical  advice,  one  may 
warn  the  young  and  ardent  advocate  of  the 
Endowment  of  Research  that  he  will  find  it 
rather  easier  to  curtail  his  expenses  than  to  get  a 
subsidy  from  the  Commission. 

The  last  important  result  of  the  *  modern 
spirit '  at  Oxford,  the  last  stroke  of  the  sanguine 
Liberal  genius,  was  the  removal  of  the  celibate 
condition  from  certain  fellowships.  One  can 
hardly  take  a  bird's-eye  view  of  Oxford  without 

204 


A  Gtneral  View 

criticising  the  consequences  of  this  innovation. 
The  topic,  however,  is,  for  a  dozen  reasons,  very 
difficult  to  handle.  One  reason  is,  that  the 
experiment  has  not  been  completely  tried.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  marry  on  a  fellowship,  a  tutor- 
ship, and  a  few  small  miscellaneous  offices.  But 
how  will  it  be  when  you  come  to  forty  years,  or 
even  fifty  }  No  materials  exist  which  can  be 
used  by  the  social  philosopher  who  wants  an 
answer  to  this  question.  In  the  meantime,  the 
common  rooms  are  perhaps  more  dreary  than  of 
old,  in  many  a  college,  for  lack  of  the  presence 
of  men  now  translated  to  another  place.  As  to 
the  '  society '  of  Oxford,  that  is,  no  doubt,  very 
much  more  charming  and  vivacious  than  it  used 
to  be  in  the  days  when  Tony  Wood  was  the 
surly  champion  of  celibacy. 

Looking  round  the  University,  then,  one 
finds  in  it  an  activity  that  would  once  have 
seemed  almost  feverish,  a  highly  conscientious 
industry,  doing  that  which  its  hand  finds  to  do, 
but  not  absolutely  certain  that  it  is  not  neglect- 

205 


Oxford 

ing  nobler  tasks.  Perhaps  Oxford  has  never  been 
more  busy  with  its  own  work,  never  less  dis- 
tracted by  religious  politics.  If  we  are  to  look 
for  a  less  happy  sign,  we  shall  find  it  in  the 
tendency  to  run  up  '  new  buildings.'  The 
colleges  are  landowners  :  they  must  suffer  with 
other  owners  of  real  property  in  the  present 
depression ;  they  will  soon  need  all  their  savings. 
That  is  one  reason  why  they  should  be  chary  of 
building ;  another  is,  that  the  fellows  of  a  college 
at  any  given  moment  are  not  necessarily  endowed 
with  architectural  knowledge  and  taste.  They 
should  think  twice,  or  even  thrice,  before  leaving 
on  Oxford  for  many  centuries  the  uncomely 
mark  of  an  unfortunate  judgment. 


206 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE 
CONCLUSION 


CHAPTER    X 

UNDERGRADUATE  LIFE— CONCLUSION 

A  HUNDRED  pictures  have  been  drawn  of 
undergraduate  life  at  Oxford,  and  a 
^  hundred  caricatures.  Novels  innumer- 
able introduce  some  Oxford  scenes.  An  author 
generally  writes  his  first  romance  soon  after 
taking  his  degree  ;  he  writes  about  his  own 
experience  and  his  own  memories  ;  he  mixes  his 
ingredients  at  will  and  tints  according  to  fancy. 
This  is  one  of  the  two  reasons  why  pictures  of 
Oxford,  from  the  undergraduate  side,  are  gener- 
ally false.  They  are  either  drawn  by  an  aspirant 
who  is  his  own  hero,  and  who  idealises  himself 
and  his  friends,  or  they  are  designed  by  ladies 
who  have  read  Verdant  Green^  and  who,  at 
some  period,  have  paid  a  flying  visit  to  Cam- 
bridge. An  exhaustive  knowledge  of  Verdant 
Green^  and  a  hasty  view  of  the  Fitzwilliam 
o  209 


Oxford 

Museum  and  '  the  backs  of  the  Colleges'  (which 
are  to  Cambridge  what  the  Docks  are  to  Liver- 
pool), do  not  afford  sufficient  materials  for  an 
accurate  sketch  of  Oxford.  The  picture  daubed 
by  the  emancipated  undergraduate  who  dabbles 
in  fiction  is  as  unrecognisable.  He  makes  him- 
self and  his  friends  too  large,  too  noisy,  too 
bibulous,  too  learned,  too  extravagant,  too  pug- 
nacious. They  seem  to  stride  down  the  High, 
prodigious,  disproportionate  figures,  like  the 
kings  of  Egypt  on  the  monuments,  overshadow- 
ing the  crowd  of  dons,  tradesmen,  bargees,  and 
cricket-field  or  river-side  cads.  Often  one  dimly 
recognises  the  scenes,  and  the  acquaintances  of 
years  ago,  in  University  novels.  The  mildest  of 
men  suddenly  pose  as  heroes  of  the  Guy  Living- 
stone type,  fellows  who  '  screw  up '  timid  dons, 
box  with  colossal  watermen,  and  read  all  night 
with  wet  towels  bound  round  their  fevered 
brows.  These  sketches  are  all  nonsense.  Men 
who  do  these  things  do  not  write  about  them  ; 
and  men  who  write  about  them  never  did  them. 

2IO 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

There  is  yet  another  cause  which  increases 
the  difficulty  of  describing  undergraduate  Hfe 
with  truth.  There  are  very  many  varieties  of 
undergraduates,  who  have  very  various  ways  of 
occupying  and  amusing  themselves.  A  steady 
man  that  reads  his  five  or  six  hours  a  day,  and 
takes  his  pastime  chiefly  on  the  river,  finds  that 
his  path  scarcely  ever  crosses  that  of  him  who 
belongs  to  the  Bullingdon  Club,  hunts  thrice  a 
week,  and  rarely  dines  in  hall.  Then  the  '  pale 
student,'  who  is  hard  at  work  in  his  rooms  or  in 
the  Bodleian  all  day,  and  who  has  only  two 
friends,  out-college  men,  with  whom  he  takes 
walks  and  tea, — he  sees  existence  in  a  very 
different  aspect.  The  Union  poHtician,  who  is 
for  ever  hanging  about  his  club,  dividing  the 
house  on  questions  of  blotting-paper  and  quill 
pens,  discussing  its  affairs  at  breakfast,  intriguing 
for  the  place  of  Librarian,  writing  rubbish  in 
the  suggestion-book,  to  him  Oxford  is  only  a  soil 
carefully  prepared  for  the  growth  of  that  fine 
flower,  the  Union.     He   never   encounters   the 


211 


Oxford 

undergraduate  who  haunts  bilHard- rooms  and  shy 
taverns,  who  buys  jewelry  for  barmaids,  and  who 
is  admired  for  the  audacity  with  which  he  smug- 
gled a  fox-terrier  into  college  in  a  brown-paper 
parcel.  There  are  many  other  species  of  under- 
graduate, scarcely  more  closely  resembling  each 
other  in  manners  and  modes  of  thought  than  the 
little  Japanese  student  resembles  the  metaphysical 
Scotch  exhibitioner,  or  than  the  hereditary  war 
minister  of  Siam  (whose  career,  though  brief,  was 
vivacious)  resembled  the  Exeter  Sioux,  a  half- 
reclaimed  savage,  who  disappeared  on  the  war- 
path after  failing  to  scalp  the  Junior  Proctor. 
When  The  Wet  Blanket  returned  to  his  lodge  in 
the  land  of  Sitting  Bull,  he  doubtless  described 
Oxford  Hfe  in  his  own  way  to  the  other  Braves, 
while  the  squaws  hung  upon  his  words  and  the 
papooses  played  around.  His  account  would 
vary,  in  many  ways,  from  that  of 

'  Whiskered  Tomkins  from  the  hall 
Of  seedy  Magdalene.' 

And  he,  again,  would  not  see  Oxford  life  steadily, 

212 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

and  see  it  whole,  as  a  more  cultivated  and 
polished  undergraduate  might.  Thus  there  are 
countless  pictures  of  the  works  and  ways  of 
undergraduates  at  the  University.  The  scene  is 
ever  the  same — boat-races  and  foot-ball  matches, 
scouts,  schools,  and  proctors,  are  common  to  all, 
— but  in  other  respects  the  sketches  must  always 
vary,  must  generally  be  one-sided,  and  must 
often  seem  inaccurate. 

It  appears  that  a  certain  romance  is  attached 
to  the  three  years  that  are  passed  between  the 
estate  of  the  freshman  and  that  of  the  Bachelor  of 
Arts.  These  years  are  spent  in  a  kind  of  fairy- 
land, neither  quite  within  nor  quite  outside  of 
the  world.  College  life  is  somewhat,  as  has  so 
often  been  said,  like  the  old  Greek  city  life.  For 
three  years  men  are  in  the  possession  of  what  the 
world  does  not  enjoy — leisure  ;  and  they  are 
supposed  to  be  using  that  leisure  for  the  purposes 
of  perfection.  They  are  making  themselves  and 
their  characters.  We  are  all  doing  that,  all  the 
days  of  our  lives  ;   but  at  the  Universities  there  is, 

213 


Oxford 

or  is  expected  to  be,  more  deliberate  and  con- 
scious effort.  Men  are  in  a  position  to  '  try  all 
things'  before  committing  themselves  to  any. 
Their  new-found  freedom  does  not  merely  consist 
in  the  right  to  poke  their  own  fires,  order  their 
own  breakfasts,  and  use  their  own  cheque-books. 
These  things,  which  make  so  much  impression  on 
the  mind  at  first,  are  only  the  outward  signs  of 
freedom.  The  boy  who  has  just  left  school,  and 
the  thoughtless  life  of  routine  in  work  and  play, 
finds  himself  in  the  midst  of  books,  of  thought, 
and  discussion.  He  has  time  to  look  at  all  the 
common  problems  of  the  hour,  and  yet  he  need 
not  make  up  his  mind  hurriedly,  nor  pledge 
himself  to  anything.  He  can  flirt  with  young 
opinions,  which  come  to  him  with  candid  faces, 
fresh  as  Queen  Entelechy  in  Rabelais,  though, 
like  her,  they  are  as  old  as  human  thought. 
Here  first  he  meets  Metaphysics,  and  perhaps 
falls  in  love  with  that  enchantress,  '  who  sifts  time 
with  a  fine  large  blue  silk  sieve.'  There  is  hardly 
a  clever  lad  but  fancies  himself  a  metaphysician, 
214 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

and  has  designs  on  the  Absolute.  Most  fall  away 
very  early  from  this,  their  first  love  ;  and  they 
follow  Science  down  one  of  her  many  paths,  or 
concern  themselves  with  politics,  and  take  a  side 
which,  as  a  rule,  is  the  opposite  of  that  to  which 
they  afterwards  adhere.  Thus  your  Christian 
Socialist  becomes  a  Court  preacher,  and  puts  his 
trust  in  princes ;  the  young  Tory  of  the  old  type 
will  lapse  into  membership  of  a  School  Board. 
It  is  the  time  of  liberty,  and  of  intellectual  attach- 
ments too  fierce  to  last  long. 

Unluckily  there  are  subjects  more  engrossing, 
and  problems  more  attractive,  than  politics,  and 
science,  art,  and  pure  metaphysics.  The  years 
of  undergraduate  life  are  those  in  which,  to  many 
men,  the  enigmas  of  religion  present  themselves. 
They  bring  their  boyish  faith  into  a  place  (if  one 
may  quote  Pantagruel's  voyage  once  more)  like 
the  Isle  of  the  Macraeones.  On  that  mournful 
island  were  confusedly  heaped  the  ruins  of  altars, 
fanes,  temples,  shrines,  sacred  obelisks,  barrows  of 
the  dead,  pyramids,  and  tombs.      Through  the 

215 


Oxford 

ruins  wandered,  now  and  again,  the  half- 
articulate  words  of  the  Oracle,  telling  how  Pan 
was  dead.  Oxford,  like  the  Isle  of  the  Macraeones, 
is  a  lumber-room  of  ruinous  philosophies,  decrepit 
religions,  forlorn  beliefs.  The  modern  system  of 
study  takes  the  pupil  through  all  the  philosophic 
and  many  of  the  religious  systems  of  belief, 
which,  in  the  distant  and  the  nearer  past,  have 
been  fashioned  by  men,  and  have  sheltered  men 
for  a  day.  You  are  taught  to  mark  each  system 
crumbling,  to  watch  the  rise  of  the  new  temple 
of  thought  on  its  ruins,  and  to  see  that  also  perish, 
breached  by  assaults  from  without  or  sapped  by 
the  slow  approaches  of  Time.  This  is  not 
the  place  in  which  we  can  well  discuss  the 
merits  of  modern  University  education.  But  no 
man  can  think  of  his  own  University  days,  or 
look  with  sympathetic  eyes  at  those  who  fill  the 
old  halls  and  rooms,  and  not  remember,  with  a 
twinge  of  the  old  pain,  how  religious  doubt 
insists  on  thrusting  itself  into  the  colleges.  And 
it  is  fair  to  say  that,  for  this,  no  set  of  teachers 
216 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

or  tutors  is  responsible.  It  is  the  modern 
historical  spirit  that  must  be  blamed,  that  too 
clear-sighted  vision  which  we  are  all  condemned 
to  share  of  the  past  of  the  race.  We  are  com- 
pelled to  look  back  on  old  philosophies,  on  India, 
Athens,  Alexandria,  and  on  the  schools  of  men 
who  thought  so  hard  within  our  own  ancient 
walls.  We  are  compelled  to  see  that  their  sys- 
tems were  only  plausible,  that  their  truths  were 
but  half-truths.  It  is  the  long  vista  of  failure 
thus  revealed  which  suggests  these  doubts  that 
weary,  and  torture,  and  embitter  the  naturally 
happy  life  of  discussion,  amusement,  friendship, 
sport,  and  study.  These  doubts,  after  all,  dwell 
on  the  threshold  of  modern  existence,  and  on  the 
threshold — namely,  at  the  Universities — men  sub- 
due them,  or  evade  them. 

The  amusements  of  the  University  have  been 
so  often  described  that  little  need  be  said  of  them 
here.  Unhealthy  as  the  site  of  Oxford  is,  the 
place  is  rather  fortunately  disposed  for  athletic 
purposes.     The  river  is  the  chief  feature  in  the 

217 


Oxford 

scenery,  and  in  the  life  of  amusement.  From 
the  first  day  of  term,  in  October,  it  is  crowded 
with  every  sort  of  craft.  The  freshman  admires 
the  golden  colouring  of  the  woods  and  Magdalen 
tower  rising,  silvery,  through  the  blue  autumnal 
haze.  As  soon  as  he  appears  on  the  river,  his 
weight,  strength,  and  '  form '  are  estimated.  He 
soon  finds  himself  pulling  in  a  college  'challenge 
four,'  under  the  severe  eye  of  a  senior  cox,  and 
by  the  middle  of  December  he  has  rowed  his 
first  race,  and  is  regularly  entered  for  a  serious 
vocation.  The  thorough-going  boating-man  is 
the  creature  of  habit.  Every  day,  at  the  same 
hour,  after  a  judicious  luncheon,  he  is  seen,  in 
flannels,  making  for  the  barge.  He  goes  out,  in 
a  skiff,  or  a  pair,  or  a  four-oar,  or  to  a  steeple- 
chase through  the  hedges  when  Oxford,  as  in 
our  illustration,  is  under  water.  The  illustration 
represents  Merton,  and  the  writer  recognises  his 
old  rooms,  with  the  Venetian  blinds  which  Mr. 
Ruskin  denounced.  Chief  of  all  the  boating- 
man  goes  out  in  an  eight,  and  rows  do\\'n  to 
218 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

Iffley,  with  the  beautiful  old  mill  and  Norman 
church,  or  accomplishes  '  the  long  course.'  He 
rows  up  again,  lounges  in  the  barge,  rows  down 
again  (if  he  has  only  pulled  over  the  short  course), 
and  goes  back  to  dinner  in  hall.  The  table 
where  men  sit  who  are  in  training  is  a  noisy 
table,  and  the  athletes  verge  on  '  bear-fighting ' 
even  in  hall.  A  statistician  might  compute  how 
many  steaks,  chops,  pots  of  beer,  and  of  marma- 
lade, an  orthodox  man  will  consume  in  the 
course  of  three  years.  He  will,  perhaps,  pretend 
to  suffer  from  the  monotony  of  boating  shop, 
boating  society,  and  broad-blown  boating  jokes. 
But  this  appears  to  be  a  harmless  affectation.  The 
old  breakfasts,  wines,  and  suppers,  the  honest  boat- 
ing slang,  will  always  have  an  attraction  for  him. 
The  summer  term  will  lose  its  delight  when  the 
May  races  are  over.  Boating-men  are  the  salt  of 
the  University,  so  steady,  so  well  disciplined,  so 
good-tempered  are  they.  The  sport  has  nothing 
selfish  or  personal  in  it  ;  men  row  for  their 
college,  or  their  University  ;   not  like  running- 

219 


Oxford 

men,  who  run,  as  it  were,  each  for  his  own 
hand.  Whatever  may  be  his  work  in  hfe,  a 
boating-man  will  stick  to  it.  His  favourite 
sport  is  not  expensive,  and  nothing  can  possibly 
be  less  luxurious.  He  is  often  a  reading  man, 
though  it  may  be  doubted  whether  '  he  who 
runs  may  read '  as  a  rule.  Running  is,  perhaps, 
a  little  overdone,  and  Strangers'  cups  are,  or 
lately  were,  given  with  injudicious  generosity. 
To  the  artist's  eye,  however,  few  sights  in  modern 
life  are  more  graceful  than  the  University  quarter- 
of-a-mile  race.  Nowhere  else,  perhaps,  do  you 
see  figures  so  full  of  a  Hellenic  grace  and  swiftness. 
The  cream  of  University  life  is  the  first 
summer  term.  Debts,  as  yet,  are  not ;  the 
Schools  are  too  far  off  to  cast  their  shadow  over 
the  unlimited  enjoyment,  which  begins  when 
lecture  is  over,  at  one  o'clock.  There  are  so 
many  things  to  do, — 

'  When  wickets  are  bowled  and  defended. 

When  Isis  is  glad  with  the  eights, 
When  music  and  sunset  are  blended, 

When  Youth  and  the  Summer  are  mates, 
220 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

When  freshmen  are  heedless  of  "  Greats," 
When  note-books  are  scribbled  with  rhyme. 

Ah  !   these  are  the  hours  that  one  rates 
Sweet  hours,  and  the  fleetest  of  Time  ! ' 

There  are  drags  at  every  college  gate  to  take 
college  teams  down  to  Cowley.  There  is  the 
beautiful  scenery  of  the  '  stripling  Thames '  to 
explore  ;  the  haunts  of  the  immortal  '  Scholar 
Gipsy,'  and  of  Shelley,  and  of  Clough's  Piper, 
who — 

'  Went  in  his  youth  and  the  sunshine  rejoicing,  to 
Nuneham  and  Godstowe.' 

Further  afield  men  seldom  go  in  summer, 
there  is  so  much  to  delight  and  amuse  in 
Oxford.^  What  day  can  be  happier  than  that  of 
which  the  morning  is  given  (after  a  lively  college 
breakfast,  or  a  '  commonising '  with  a  friend)  to 
study,  while  cricket  occupies  the  afternoon,  till 
music  and  sunset  fill  the  grassy  stretches  above 
Iffley,  and  the  college  eights  flash  past  among 

^  A   very    pleasing    account    of    the    scenery    near    Oxford 
appeared  in  the  Cornhill  for  September  1879. 

221 


Oxford 

cheering  and  splashing  ?  Then  there  is  supper 
in  the  cool  halls,  darkling,  and  half-lit  up  ;  and 
after  supper  talk,  till  the  birds  twitter  in  the  elms, 
and  the  roofs  and  the  chapel  spire  look  unfamiliar 
in  the  blue  of  dawn.  How  long  the  days  were 
then  !  almost  like  the  days  of  childhood  ;  how 
distinct  is  the  impression  all  experience  used  to 
make  !  In  later  seasons  Care  is  apt  to  mount  the 
college  staircase,  and  the  '  oak '  which  Shelley 
blessed  cannot  keep  out  this  visitor.  She  comes 
in  many  a  shape — as  debt,  and  doubt,  and  melan- 
choly ;  and  often  she  comes  as  bereavement.  Life 
and  her  claims  wax  importunate  ;  to  many  men 
the  Schools  mean  a  cruel  and  wearing  anxiety, 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  real  importance  of 
academic  success.  We  cannot  see  things  as  they 
are,  and  estimate  their  value,  in  youth  ;  and  if 
pleasures  are  more  keen  then,  grief  is  more 
hopeless,  doubt  more  desolate,  uncertainty  more 
gnawing,  than  in  later  years,  when  we  have 
known  and  survived  a  good  deal  of  the  worst  of 
mortal  experience.     Often  on  men  still  in  their 


222 


Undergraduate  Life — Conclusion 

pupilage  the  weight  of  the  first  misfortunes  falls 
heavily  ;  the  first  touch  of  Dame  Fortune's  whip 
is  the  most  poignant.  We  cannot  recover  the 
first  summer  term  ;  but  it  has  passed  into  our- 
selves and  our  memories,  into  which  Oxford, 
with  her  beauty  and  her  romance,  must  also 
quickly  pass.  He  is  not  to  be  envied  who  has 
known  and  does  not  love  her.  Where  her 
children  have  quarrelled  with  her  the  fault  is 
theirs,  not  hers.  They  have  chosen  the  acci- 
dental evils  to  brood  on,  in  place  of  acquiescing 
in  her  grace  and  charm.  These  are  crowded 
and  hustled  out  of  modern  life ;  the  fever  and  the 
noise  of  our  struggles  fill  all  the  land,  leaving  still, 
at  the  Universities,  peace,  beauty,  and  leisure. 

If  any  word  in  these  papers  has  been  un- 
kindly said,  it  has  only  been  spoken,  I  hope,  of 
the  busybodies  who  would  make  Oxford  cease  to 
be  herself ;  who  would  rob  her  of  her  loveHness 
and  her  repose. 


223 


Edinburgh  :  Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constaule  Ltd, 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

i 

AECHIIECTDHE  LIBHiitii 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

Tcr,ia;iie"        vj^sg^... 

